


Parallel Fate

by ShadowOwl



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Swap, Hanoi!Yusaku, M/M, Two universes, future tags will be added as chapters go on, slight angst, takes place after S2 ep80
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23342326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowOwl/pseuds/ShadowOwl
Summary: In searching for Lightning, Yusaku finds a strange portal appeared in Link Vrains and he ends up in it sucked by an unknown force. What catches him off guard is that he encounters a person who has a same face as his, wearing a familiar white uniform. Things get complicated when he finds out his conscious data has been swapped with the person, resulting in him in a somewhat different world of his. Both of them need to find a way back before their enemy finds out about it, while trying to getting along with their 'special person' in the world they are in respectively.
Relationships: Ai | Ignis & Fujiki Yuusaku, Fujiki Yuusaku/Revolver | Kougami Ryouken
Comments: 47
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during S2, after ep80 where Lightning took Blood Shepherd's conscious data.

White, a colour which was often associated with purity, light and protection to some. White was nothing to be afraid about, as it was bright, like the wings of an angel, guiding you to the light, to a place where you would feel safe. But to Yusaku, it was a colour of an endless nightmare. Indelible memories and dread which he went through during most of his nights. He had used to having sleepless nights just to avoid having those dreams, dreams that kept repeating itself like a videotape, haunting Yusaku with the image of the white room and his own screams from losing a duel.

White would always be a negative colour to him, too much white would be overwhelming that invoked his emotions strongly. There was no way he would like the colour white after the incident. The fear within his heart after experiencing the nightmare was nothing new or rare, but nevertheless still managed to make him tremble in waves of panic, struggle to breath and have trouble sleeping for the next few hours. He thought he would only get to see those images in his dreams. 

But now, he was in Link Vrains, standing in a plain white room, the emptiness of the room made his heart beat faster, unpleasant memories started to form in his mind. 

Before this, he remembered he was searching for Lightning’s whereabouts with Kusanagi-san and Takeru, along with their two comrade Ignises. They had been trying to track down the Light Ignis the past few days. When he was back in Kusanagi-san’s truck with Takeru and the purple-haired hacker, they detected a strange portal that appeared in Link Vrains using the LVSS after a few hours of scanning and searching in the virtual world. They suspected it as one of Lightning’s doing as Ai and Flame verified that the program was created from Ignis algorithm after the discovery, Light Ignis algorithm to be specific. 

It could be a trap, the portal was opened within their searching range. Too obvious to their dismay, but Yusaku couldn’t care less at that moment. It had been a few days since Blood Shepherd’s consciousness data was taken by Lightning, and that became an alarming sign to them that the Light Ignis was too strong to be defeated. Yusaku believed they might need to come up with a plan quickly. Time would not wait for them, or help them end this war either.

Yusaku decided to investigate the portal with Takeru, even knowing the risk of getting caught into a set up trap. They had been facing dangers and risks since before and the start of the war between Ignises. It would be a bad decision if they chose to ignore it, considering they already located their enemy’s possible newly created threat.

Both of them went into their VR rooms respectively and logged in Link Vrains, found and approached the portal with Kusanagi-san’s navigation. The yellow portal shone brightly, floating midair above a small abandoned ruins, which the SOL Technologies seemed to have forgotten about to update and develop. It was a wonder nobody noticed this portal as many players loved to roam and explore everywhere, seeking for adventures. Even SOL themselves didn’t show any sign of sending out their investigation team.

Playmaker then remembered that he had been getting sucked by an unknown force emitted from the portal. Maybe he lost to the force and went through the portal. He guessed this was the other side of the portal.

The white room was making him uncomfortable. He forced himself to close his eyes and convinced multiple times to his mind that this was not real, he was not back into that torturing place. He took a deep breath and slowly counted to three, calming himself down, recalling the three things from his voice of hope. Three things to live, three things to go home, three things to defeat the enemy. 

Come to think of it, what is Ryoken doing right now? Did he also find out about the strange portal? What would he do if he knows about it? He understood both of them were in a hostile relationship, but he wanted to think otherwise. They had the same enemy now, and Playmaker had actually thought about teaming up with him, but he didn’t suggest it to his companions. He assumed they might not be agreeing with this idea. They still couldn’t trust the Knights of Hanoi, as long as they were on the Ignis’s side.

“Playmaker, are you okay?” Ai popped out from the duel disk revealing his Ignis form and reached out his hand to touch Playmaker’s arm, showing a gesture of comfort to him. Playmaker opened his eyes and nodded lightly. 

“I’m fine,” he observed the empty room, and then found a door with a silver door frame at his left . “We need to get out of here.”

Ai agreed with a nod, but then he remembered something important, and warned Playmaker. 

“I tried to log us out just a few seconds ago, but apparently it didn’t work. Even with Kusanagi’s installed emergency escape program. It won’t activate.” 

Playmaker furrowed his eyebrows. That was bad news to them. In that case, they would have to find another way to escape this place. Soulburner might be panicking now outside the portal, or maybe he too was sucked into here, just at a different location from him. He hoped it was the former. They should have been more cautious with all this portal approaching from the lessons learnt when they faced Blood Shepherd’s trap. Well, what was done had been done. There was no use crying over spilt milk. 

Leaving all the thoughts aside, Playmaker proceeded to open the door, and he was overwhelmed with the mirrors everywhere within his sight. He had walked into a maze of mirrors, where the mirrors spanning like walls from the floor to the roof, all around in a dizzying array of mirrors reflecting without any gaps or overlaps, showing and repeating his reflections. The floor was illuminating a faint light which was hard to notice. 

“This place feels strange,” Playmaker tapped on the mirror glass. “It looks like a maze. We need to find the way out.”

Ai suddenly halted him, his voice was shaking a little bit. 

“Wait! This creepy maze looks too suspicious! Are you sure you want to walk into it!? What if we got lost and trapped inside forever!?” Ai said anxiously. “And we just found out we can’t log out from here!”

“There’s nothing else we can do, we can’t turn back now,” Playmaker turned his head to look back at the door where he came into this maze, but it was not there anymore. What he could see was another mirror replacing the door, showing his own reflection. The mirror had a sign stuck on it, stating ‘Start’. “We can only walk ahead to find the answer we need. Even if we know Lightning’s trying to lure us into this.” 

“Oh... guess we don’t really have much of a choice then…Let's go then.” Ai folded his arms and stared hard at the entrance.

Playmaker took a cautious step at the entrance of the maze. Seeing nothing happened, he took another step, then another, and finally proceeded to walk at a steady pace to search for the exit. 

He kept bumping at mirror walls and got lost midway while Ai blurting out random directions for him to go. All of his reflections from the mirrors were very distracting, and he thought it would be easy to walk through a mirror maze. This was his first time going into one, and he didn’t have the experience of going through it. 

After what seemed to be forever, Playmaker felt a slight hopelessness within him when he realized he was back to square one again at the entrance after all the effort spent in the maze. Ai’s proclaimed ‘ultra instinct navigation’ was not helping at all. The Dark Ignis sulked when he saw the entrance. 

Playmaker tried again, walking back into the maze. But luck was not with his side, as the entrance was right in front of him once again, and he started to feel his head throbbing in pain after all the walking in the maze with zero sense of directions. Ai tried to put some sort of markings on the mirrors during their third attempt, a black stripe of ink on the glass which Playmaker wanted to ask about the source of the ink, but they quickly found out that the ink disappeared almost in an instant, the mirror absorbed the liquid like a sponge. They were speechless when that happened. Ai proceeded to his plan B, which was by breaking the mirror glass to leave a crack on it. It failed immediately, as he couldn’t even manage to leave a scratch on the surface. Playmaker tried to hit the glass hard, it didn’t budge or break. 

Without wasting any more time, they dropped the idea of damaging the mirrors and continued to walk around, searching desperately for the exit. 

As expected, Playmaker was back at the entrance. No matter how he walked with different turns and steps each time he stepped into the mirror maze, he would still end up at the starting point. 

“What will happen if we stay here forever?” Ai questioned, actually not expecting an answer from his origin. Playmaker did not dare to say that they would be fine staying here. Who knew what Lightning had up his sleeve. He was a sly Ignis, and an unscrupulous one too. 

How long had he been here? If this went on, they were not going to escape this maze sooner. Endless looping was something Playmaker feared he might come across. Just as what Ai had said, both of them would be stuck in this maze forever, and he still hasn't figured out the motive of Lightning creating this program in the first place. If only there was some clue or something to guide, maybe he should just walk back into the maze to find something— 

_'Link Sense'._

All of a sudden, he heard a voice interrupted his thought which caught him off guard. The urge to walk back into the maze vanished and he looked around him. The voice was very faint, almost inaudible, but Playmaker managed to hear the two words coming from it. His eyes widened when he grasped the utterance. 

Three questions emerged in his head. How does this voice know about Link Sense? Why is this voice echoing in his mind? And who is this mysterious voice?

 _'Link Sense. You… have that ability, right? Try to use it. Concentrate.'_

No harm in trying. So Playmaker closed his eyes and focused, using his Link Sense to feel his surroundings. Passing through the mirrors, he managed to sense a very weak presence of a door at the other side of the maze, but it was not exactly a big step to help him figure out the correct path to it. Playmaker discovered that the maze was massive and the exit was very far away from where he was now. The mirrors were still an obstacle, and he couldn’t break through them with force. So how could he find the way to the exit?

The voice spoke again. This time, surprisingly, giving him directions. 

‘ _From the entrance, walk five steps ahead. Then, proceed to your left and walk four steps._ ’

Playmaker was at a loss when he heard the instructions. Is the voice giving him the actual way to the exit? He looked down at his Duel Disk and wanted to ask Ai about the voice, only to see the Dark Ignis watching him in confusion. 

“Playmaker-sama? You seemed to be in deep thought, something’s wrong?” 

“Did you hear anything?” Playmaker asked. Ai answered him with a shake of his head. The Dark Ignis blinked his eyes and looked around them, then looked back at him with a shrug. 

“No, I don’t think there’s anyone else here other than us. It’s too quiet. I didn’t sense anything abnormal either. Gave me chills. We have to be more careful.” 

Playmaker looked back at the mirrors from the entrance. Time was ticking away. He couldn’t waste anymore time trapping in this maze. He needed to get out of here as soon as possible and meet up with Soulburner and inform Kusanagi-san about this place. The longer he stayed here, the higher the chances of him and Ai getting in danger.

He took a step into the maze again, following the guide from the voice by walking five steps, and four more steps after turning to the left. He stopped almost immediately when he heard the voice. 

_'Left is a dead end. Turn right and walk eight steps.'_

The voice was far, but also very close at the same time to his sense. Playmaker listened to it and turned to his right. 

_'Five steps ahead and turn right.'_

_'Turn left this time and walk six steps.'_

Playmaker kept on following the directions, ignoring Ai’s constant asking of ‘how do you know where you are going’, until the voice halted him.

 _'Stop.'_ He immediately stopped right in front of a mirror. He noticed that at the upper middle of the mirror, there was a small yellow arrow sign on it. 

The voice talked slower than usual, as if they wanted Playmaker to keep full attention to what they would say next.

_'Now, from here onwards, there will be a lot of arrow signs on the mirrors. Those arrows will point in a direction, showing you the way to the exit. But be careful that not all are telling the truth. Colours will help to determine their true message. If the arrow is orange, follow the pointed direction. If it’s yellow, go the opposite way. If it’s green, it sometimes shows the correct way but sometimes not. To prove that, tap the arrow sign three times. If nothing changes, follow exactly where it’s pointing at. If the arrow turns the other way, follow the new direction. Red arrows only show the correct way when they are pointed to the left. Avoid turning right if they are pointing that way. Blue is very rare, but if there’s one, push the mirror. There will be a hidden path, showing the right way to go.'_

Playmaker didn’t expect the amount of the next information would be this much, but he tried his best to memorize them while listening attentively to the voice. After pausing for a brief moment, the voice continued.

_'There is only one black arrow in the maze, when you find it, take it with you. The arrow is the key to open the door. The black arrow can be found on the way. Good luck.'_

Playmaker waited for a while to let the voice talk more, but there was none coming from it, so he looked at the very first yellow arrow he saw and walked in the different direction it was pointing at. He realized he didn’t manage to walk this far to encounter any arrows. Does this mean he is halfway to the exit?

It was quite a challenge to reach the exit. He encountered lots of different coloured arrows sticking on some of the mirrors. It was hard to notice at first, the arrows were semi-transparent and he needed to look closely to get the colour and the shape of them. He told Ai about the arrows, wishing the Ignis could help him in spotting them. 

“How do you know about all these arrows?” Ai asked him.

He just shrugged and left the question behind. Not because of not wanting to answer Ai, but not knowing how to answer him. 

The voice didn’t lie about finding a black arrow, as Playmaker found it sticking at the edge of a mirror with a blue arrow on the upper middle. He took the sticker-like arrow and pushed the mirror lightly to find a hidden passage. He went into the passage to continue his puzzle solving. 

At last, he reached a glass door at the very far end of the maze with nothing carved or stuck on it. There was no arrow shown on it, but the door seemed to be the dead end. It looked transparent, but Playmaker couldn’t see anything on the other side. He couldn’t see his own reflections from the door either. 

He remembered the voice‘s instructions and stuck the black arrow on the door carefully, and in a blink of an eye the door dispersed into data particles, leaving a white corridor, leading him to the next room. 

Is everything here white? Playmaker beared the uneasiness crawled out of his mind and examined the corridor, then decided to walk through it after Ai stated that no suspicious data or program was detected. 

At the end of the corridor, he saw another white door. He pushed it open and went through it.  
He looked around the spacious room, with the room size of an art gallery hall, without any paintings hanging on the wall. 

The surrounding spaces were mirrors, nothing else. Various shaped mirrors covered every single area in the room, as if the mirrors were puzzle pieces fixed on the wall, even the floor surface was mirrors. When Playmaker took a few steps, glass tapping sounds which were too loud to his ears echoed in the room. He wondered if he would awaken some monsters slumbered in this room or activate some traps without him knowing by these noises. He could only see the silvery white from the mirror, and his own reflections, strangely magnified to become bigger than normal, adding mostly black and green colour from his bodysuit to the bizarre room. 

Every different shaped mirror in the bizarre room reflected his movement of walking around and checking every piece of them. Playmaker touched the icy surface and felt nothing from it. Somehow he felt cold and spine-chilling the longer he stayed here. 

Ai looked around with a worried expression and called at Playmaker. “Do you think this is a trap from Lightning?” 

“I’m not sure. I didn’t sense anything,” except for the voice that had guided him at the maze just a moment ago, but he didn’t hear it anymore ever since he stepped into this room. “We need to investigate why Lightning created this space. He must be planning something. We need to—” 

Just then, something _white_ caught his attention that made him feel alerted. He caught a glimpse of the _white_ object from one of the mirrors, but he wouldn't be sure if he was just imagining it. He tried to capture the _white_ thing but lost it in a sea of black and green. He quickly moved to the middle of the room and stood there silently, trying to get a full view of the whole mirror room. Ai looked up from the Duel Disk at him curiously. 

“What’s wrong? Is there something in the room?”

Playmaker sensed something, no, someone else in the room. It was weak, but he could feel the other person’s presence getting closer and closer. He started to move around the room with his eyes closed, trying to guide his way with his Link Sense. He ignored Ai’s panic shout reacting to his sudden strange behaviour.

The Link Sense suddenly lost the presence of the mysterious being, as if the other person was trying to cut off the linkage and Playmaker cursed lightly of it. Ai continued to shout at him which made him shush at the Ignis. 

“Be quiet! There’s someone else with us.” Playmaker didn’t open his eyes and persisted in finding the presence again. His senses sought in vain for it, and somehow he felt like something was searching for his presence instead. 

Ai immediately shut up, realizing that Playmaker was trying to use his Link Sense to achieve something. The room was once again in dead silence. After a few minutes of concentration, Playmaker finally found the presence once more, this time he could sense the other stronger and clearer now. Then, he heard the familiar voice. 

_'Hello?'_

Playmaker could even hear the voice clearer than he heard it in the mirror maze and it sounded way too familiar. He couldn’t recognise the voice right away for unknown reasons and it made him slightly frustrated. He opened his eyes and looked down at Ai, who looked back at him with that same confused look previously. The Dark Ignis didn’t show any reaction regarding the voice, so it proved again that only Playmaker could hear it.

'I want to know who you are,' the voice said. Playmaker tried to reply but it seemed that his voice couldn’t be delivered to the mysterious person, because the voice didn’t answer him and continued to question him instead. 

_'I just want to make sure you’re not showing any threat. Are you an enemy?'_ Playmaker wanted to reply ‘no’ but hesitated, seeing that the person he was communicating with might be an ally of Lightning, someone who had been sent by the Light Ignis to eliminate them, perhaps? He couldn’t let his guard down just because the voice was somehow familiar to him. If the voice really had something to do with Lightning, he needed to capture them before they disappeared again. 

He suddenly remembered the _white_ object he saw from one of the mirrors, so he proceeded to move around the mirror-covered room and search for it, hoping that he could find it sooner before something bad happened to them. 

Clicking of heels on the mirror floor was the only sound echoing in the room. The voice didn’t say anything more and Playmaker thought the presence would have disappeared without him knowing, if he didn’t sense it now and then somewhere in the room. Both the voice and _white_ object made him agitated and he wanted to find out their identity quickly. 

At the opposite side of the room, he eventually caught it from a mirror despite the distance to see clearly of the image. The mirror was slightly larger than the rest, with the actual size and length to show the full body of an adult with average height. Upon looking at his own reflection from the particular mirror, he felt a sudden coldness crepting around his heart. He couldn’t believe what he had seen.

The _white object_ turned out to be a human. The white he saw was from the outfit the person was wearing. He could see a glimpse of hair peeking out from the hoodie on the person’s head. As he slowly walked nearer and nearer to the mirror, the reflection in it mimicked his actions. Playmaker stopped in front of the mirror, eyes widened with pure astonishment. The reflection was showing the same expression as his. 

Looking in the mirror, Playmaker stared at his own reflection, a similar face with the same vibrant green eyes and his avatar’s hair colour of red and yellow with pink highlights. Disbelief and dismay was shown on their faces. 

Everything was ordinary to Playmaker, telling him that there was nothing wrong with his own reflection, except for the different outfit his reflection was wearing, a sharp contrast to differentiate the image from the rest of his other reflections shown by the rest of the mirrors in the mirror room. Instead of black and green bodysuit as his, his reflection was wearing something too familiar, a white uniform with a hooded coat, which made him feel a strange sense of odds bubbling within him. 

The _Playmaker_ in the mirror was wearing the uniform of the Knights of Hanoi, his face showing the same reaction of being in a state of confusion and shock.

Ai noticed the reflection too and was also too shocked to utter any words to grab Playmaker's attention. Even if Ai could speak out right now, Playmaker was sure he would not hear a single word from the Ignis. 

Playmaker reached out his hand to touch the mirror, his reflection doing the same motion. When he placed his hand on the smooth surface, a sudden shock wave transmitted into his body and pain was all over him within a second. He screamed out of surprise and agony. His ears were ringing, causing his head to become dizzy. The pain was unbearable, his legs suddenly felt like jellies, and made him kneeled down on the floor. His reflection too kneeled down, but he was muttering something out as Playmaker saw his mouth opening and closing from the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t hear anything from his _doppelganger_. He believed that was not his reflection.

But then, he heard the voice was back in his head. 

_'Hey, stay with me!'_

_'Try to fight back the pain! Don’t pull back your hand from the mirror!'_

_'Ugh- try to stay awake! Everything’s going to be fine!'_

It was then that Playmaker realized. The voice was the _other him_ from the other side of the mirror. He saw him staring right back at him but with a different expression. No wonder he felt familiar with it. But something was wrong on the other side. The _other him_ looked really alarmed and was shouting at something which he couldn’t hear clearly. Playmaker released a painful groan, his consciousness starting to seep out. With all the pain all over his body, he tried hard to endure it and not to loosen his hand from touching the mirror. 

_'Don’t you dare lay a hand on him!'_ He could hear his _doppelganger_ shouting with pure anger now. He sounded irritated and also frightened at the same time. 

Before he could even call Ai to log them out and escape from the room despite the awareness of being unable to log out, the mirror emitted shattering noises and it scattered into pieces, revealing a pitch black hole behind it. The _other him_ was gone, and before he could even react a sudden strange force pulled him forward and he fell into the bottomless pit without the strength to fight back. When he was falling, he heard the voice screamed in pain, and it came like a full blow on him, making his head dizzy and painful once again. The scream slowly died away when he felt his consciousness leaving his mind. Eventually he blackened out and was embraced by the darkness. 

* * *

Yusaku heard a voice calling his name but he was too tired to open his eyes. He felt his eyelids were too heavy and he couldn’t lift them up. His head was still aching and now he just wanted to sleep and forgot about everything that happened previously. He felt like he had a bad dream, if he opened his eyes everything he learned before was not real at all. The maze, the mirrors, the voice, and the strange _reflection_. As he decided to ignore the voice and fall back into his slumber, someone shook him gently on the shoulder. Whoever was trying to wake him up, Yusaku just wished the person could just leave him alone. Then something struck his mind. Had he logged out from Link Vrains? Did he succeed in escaping from the mirror room? Did Ai manage to log them out? But he remembered he was inside the VR room in Kusanagi-san’s truck and nobody could open the door except the person inside the room. So who had successfully opened the door and disturbed him from his sleep?

His headache slowly subsided. Thinking it might just be Kusanagi-san or maybe Takeru, who got to open the door from outside, or Ai who was inside the room with him, Yusaku opened his eyes to look at the other, murmuring something inaudible even to his own ears. 

He froze when he saw the familiar snowy white hair, and the striking blue eyes staring back at him. The person was crouching down on one knee beside what Yusaku was sitting on. He was still in a lying position on what he assumed was an armchair, and it was quite comfortable to sit on. Yusaku turned his head to look at the other clearly. He tried to say something but nothing came out of his mouth. 

“Yusaku?” The white-haired teen called his name, his tone mixed with relief and concern which was very strange and alien to Yusaku. “Can you hear me?”

Yusaku slowly sat up from his previous position and stared at his rival in disbelief. What is Ryoken doing here? And why is he here? Why did Kusanagi-san let him into the truck? 

He then realized he was not in Kusanagi-san’s truck, or in the VR room. He was in a very familiar mansion he once barged in to meet his voice of hope. A new question formed immediately. Why was he here? 

“I-” His sentence was cut off by a strong embrace from his supposedly called enemy. His body felt tense from the sudden hug. Both of his arms hung on the air in a very awkward position. The white-haired teen hugged him with more strength now, and he was starting to feel suffocated.

“Please, don’t ever do that again. Going to enemy’s territory alone. You made me worried sick when I saw you went into Link Vrains without any plans. I’m just glad you’re—”

When Yusaku felt a hand gently caress his face, he pushed Ryoken out of panic. He didn't know why he did that, maybe because he didn’t expect Ryoken to hug him and touch his face with that gentle gesture. 

Ryoken stared back at him with slight confusion, then asked him in a concerned tone after he recovered from receiving the reaction from him.

“Yusaku? Is something wrong?” Ryoken tried to get closer to Yusaku, and that made the latter feel nervous again. “Are you hurt somewhere? Let me see it.” 

Yusaku quickly got up from the armchair and took a few steps back, keeping a distance from Ryoken, which only made the older teen trying to approach him by taking a few steps forward to him.

“Yusaku? Why are you avoiding me?” Ryoken tried to grab Yusaku’s arm but failed as the younger teen dodged the hand. “You are acting strange.”

 _You are the one who is acting strange!_ But before Yusaku could even say it out, the headache was back again. He held his head in pain and his body started to wobble. He couldn’t feel his legs, feeling like he might fall down anytime soon. Unable to withstand the sudden pain and fatigue, he felt that he was losing his consciousness once more. 

Before he was completely unconscious, he could see a pair of blue eyes staring at him in panic and he didn’t feel any hard surface collided with his body when he collapsed onto the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter! Let me know what you think about it. Please tell me too if there's any errors. I had this idea ever since S2 but I only wrote it out a few weeks ago. Hope it's still not too late to share it with you all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yusaku from the other side of the mirror had figured out what had happened to him and tried to talk about it with the Dark Ignis, but the other Yusaku hadn't really sure about his situation.

Yusaku was awakened by a severe headache, pains struck into his skull. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes, feeling a strange sensation stirring up from his heart. He felt like he was not on an armchair, but sitting on the floor leaning against a hard surface. He nearly made a strangled noise when he looked around him, alerted that he was not at where he had been anymore. He was too exhausted to stand up at the moment, but he knew he must leave this place sooner. It was not safe to stay in an unknown place. 

Just when he was about to think of an escape plan, something was pulling on his blazer’s sleeve, and then he turned his head to look at it, but the thing, which he realized was small, had hugged his cheek and cried in a too dramatic manner. Yusaku couldn’t see properly what it was. He could only hear continual speaking from the thing. 

“Ohhhhh thank god you’re okay Yusaku! I was so scared when you suddenly fainted! But don’t worry now! We’re finally out from that creepy place! We’re not going back there anymore! You hear that!? Oh yeah, we better tell Kusanagi we’re safe! Flame and Takeru must be very worried about us too!” 

The thing was quite soft in contact. Yusaku couldn’t comprehend the situation he was in, but he could recognize the voice at the least. He slowly pulled the thing away from his face and green eyes immediately widened when he saw what it actually was. 

“Dark Ignis?” Yusaku stared at the Ignis who stared back at him in utter confusion. “How- what are you doing here?” 

At the same moment, he also noticed the old modeled Duel Disk on his wrist, where the Dark Ignis was residing in the purple orb, revealing only half of his body. Since when did he own one? 

The Dark Ignis moved nearer when Yusaku lifted his arm to look closely at the Duel Disk with puzzled eyes, and the former waved his hands in front of the teen’s face, his little yellow irises showing concern. 

“Hey, Yusaku? You okay there? What’s with the name calling? Did you hit your head or something?” 

Yusaku was baffled. “Aren’t you the Dark Ignis?” 

Ai touched Yusaku’s forehead with one of his hands. “Hmm, seems like you don’t have a fever. It’s not like I can check your temperature right, at least you’re not hot to the touch. And yes, I’m the Dark Ignis! But I do have a name! And it was given by none other than you! Oh dear, poor Yusaku! Did you really hit your head so hard until you forgot about Ai-sama’s name?!”

Yusaku raised his eyebrows at the Ignis who was touching all parts of his face now. He stopped him from doing further and asked again. “You have a name? And... I’m the one who gave you that name? Ai?”

Ai nodded proudly. “Absolutely! But I’m worried now, do you really forget about my name?”

Then his yellow irises widened and Yusaku thought they might pop out. “Don’t tell me your memories have been erased! Oh my god! Lightning must have done something to you! I better go find that little——”

“Ai,” Yusaku was supposed to be the one to freak out, but the Dark Ignis had done that for him. Seeing the Ignis’s splutters had taken away the fear he had in him. Now he just felt amazed at Ai’s reaction. “Calm down.” 

“How can I calm down when you’re like this!” 

“Ai,” Yusaku called out the Ignis’s name once more. “I didn’t get my memories erased. The Light… Lightning didn’t do anything.” 

“He didn’t do anything?” Ai looked at Yusaku warily and folded his arms. “How can you be so sure? Lightning has so many tricks up his sleeves, including taking people’s conscious data! Damn it, maybe he also knows how to manipulate others’ memory data now! Yusaku— ” 

Yusaku interrupted Ai, raising his voice a little higher. “Ai! Listen to me. I’m not getting manipulated by that Ignis. As if he can lay a hand on me.” 

Yusaku quickly added when he saw the Dark Ignis reacted to his words with a perplexed look. “Forget about what I said just now. May I ask, where are we?”

Yusaku was relieved that Ai didn’t notice his attempt to change the subject, but earned another confused look from him. 

“Yusaku-chan? You’re scaring me more and more now. We’re inside Kusanagi’s truck, in the VR room." 

The teen looked around him and made a mental note for himself. This secluded room did look like a place to log into the virtual world without outside interference. It could only fit in a person, or maybe two if they managed to squeeze and still be comfortable in this space. The walls might be even made from soundproofing materials, as he couldn't hear anything from the outside.

Yusaku tried recalling the incident he encountered at the mirror room before he fell unconscious, he thought he could have failed in logging out when he wanted to save the person who looked exactly like him on the other side of the mirror. Yet they broke free from the mirror room. He guessed they were logged out by force, but from what, he wouldn't be sure. 

There was something else bothering his mind. Yusaku furrowed his eyebrows and thought deeply. When talking to Ai just now, he caught sight of his clothes, the Den City High School’s standard uniform. He also took some time to observe the things around him in the small room when Ai was busy freaking out. The school uniform, the old-modeled Duel Disk, Dark Ignis’s different behaviour, and maybe more things he needed to collect and know of. He did have an idea of his current state, but he might be wrong to make a conclusion so soon, even so...

Yusaku’s heavy sigh made Ai turn around to look at him. He tried not to show too much expression on his face. He needed to be composed to tell the Ignis his thoughts.

“I want to clarify something, please don’t freak out, Ai. That… I'm actually not really the Yusaku you know. That’s why you found me acting weird or such.” 

Yusaku imagined a question mark bubble forming on top of Ai’s head, as he tilted his head slightly with uncertainty on his little face.

“Huh? Can’t really follow you. What do you mean you’re not the Yusaku I know? You’re just right in front of me!”

This was where the difficult part came. To have the Ignis believe in him. It was normal to not believe, considering what he might say next could be something absurd to most people, maybe even to the Ignises. 

“The conscious data residing in this body now does not belong to Yusaku, I mean, the Fujiki Yusaku you know,” he added. “Is that his name? Fujiki Yusaku?” 

He just wanted to know if the owner of this body had the same name as his, and he made a confirmation of it when Ai nodded. The Dark Ignis was so confused his head might explode into data particles. 

“I know you will not believe me within this short amount of time, but…” Yusaku thought for a while, then spoke again. “Do you remember seeing a different reflection back in the mirror room?”

“You mean, the Playmaker wearing the Knights of Hanoi uniform?” Ai replied, eyes slowly became wider.

Yusaku nodded. “So you saw it. I didn’t notice you though. Didn’t expect you would be with him in the first place.” 

Ai couldn't believe what the seemingly different ‘Yusaku’ had said. “Wait, does that mean....?”

“Well, that was me. I’m the Playmaker on the other side of the mirror. You can also think in another way, that I'm from a different world connected by the mirror.” 

“That explains something, but why are you wearing the uniform???” Ai didn’t even try to hide his curiosity. It seemed that the Ignis was more shocked of him wearing the Knights of Hanoi uniform than him coming from a different world, or dimension. He kept on asking questions which made Yusaku feel amused by it. 

“Isn’t that obvious?” Yusaku said. “I’m a member of—”

A loud knock on the door of the VR room cut off his words. The alarmed teen jerked up his head from looking at Ai and stared at the door. Yusaku turned his attention back to the Ignis.

“Is there someone else here?”

“Yeah. I did say we’re inside Kusanagi’s truck. So of course Kusanagi’s here with us. Takeru and Flame are here too. Maybe they had logged out to check on us.” 

The nervousness that had subsided just a few minutes ago flowed back like a flooded stream, but Yusaku didn’t show it on his face. Ai motioned him to leave the VR room from the Duel Disk.

“ We can talk about this later. Let’s go out— are you okay?” Ai look at him worriedly. “You’re sweating.”

“Just feeling hot. Uh… shall we leave this place? Wait—” Yusaku brushed it off and before he proceeded to open the door, he looked at Ai.

“Can we keep this matter between us at the moment? We’re just back from Link Vrains, I don’t want them to get worried furthermore. ” 

Ai made a gesture of zipping his mouth up, even if Yusaku couldn’t locate his mouth. “Your secret is safe with me.” 

Yusaku opened the door and was immediately greeted with a strong grip at his shoulder by Takeru. He winced quietly of the slight pain from the grip, and the teen with white hair and red highlights was too thrilled at the moment to notice the other teen’s expression. Ai just looked at him quietly.

“Yusaku!? You’re fine! I’m so glad you’re unharmed! I quickly logged out as soon as Kusanagi-san informed me you had logged out from the system!” 

Yusaku nodded almost in an awkward way and gave a tiny smile. “Sorry for making you worried. Homu— Takeru?” 

Luckily Takeru didn’t hear his questioning tone of whether he should call him Homura or Takeru, and he released a sigh of relief when the other teen looked back at him in a friendly manner. Flame appeared out of Takeru’s Duel Disk and showed his concern to Ai but he was glad they were safe and sound. 

“Yusaku! Are you alright!?” Kusanagi came into the scene and approached Yusaku. Yusaku tensed up when he received a pat on the shoulder from the older man and the reaction was not missed by the Dark Ignis. He just kept giving glances at him while exchanging words with Flame. 

“What happened back then?” Takeru asked in concern. “Is… Is Lighting there with you? Inside the portal?”

Yusaku shook his head. “No. Just me and Ai.”

It was a lie for himself, but the truth for the Yusaku in this world. 

“Can you tell us the details?” Flame ended his conversation with Ai and turned to Yusaku. “We might need as much information as we can to track down Lightning.” 

Yusaku nodded. “I can tell you everything I saw inside the portal. But… can we leave this for later?” 

He knew it was rude to react like this, but he didn’t feel like explaining the situation now. In fact, the main reason he felt unsettled was because he was not ready to talk with Kusanagi and Takeru. 

He needed some time, a very short time at the least to adapt to this feeling, and he needed to act natural and calm in front of them to explain all the incidents. He couldn’t do that properly with uneased emotions. 

So, he wanted to leave the truck. Not running away from his responsibility, he just needed some time to collect himself back again. He wanted to scold himself of being ridiculous. 

“I’m sorry, Kusanagi-san, Takeru. But can I go out for a walk and get some fresh air? I’m still feeling dizzy.” 

He looked at Ai, seeking some support from him. Ai got the message at once and spoke out.

“Yeah! I’m feeling light-headed too, might get sick if I don’t get some fresh air now.” 

Flame looked at his Ignis friend in a questioning look. “We don’t get sick like humans. Ai. Are you trying to make an excuse to change the subject?”

“Hey! Show some sympathy will you! We just had a hard time—” Ai immediately stopped what he was saying when he felt an intense glare on him, then continued with a worn out tone. “Look, we just feel tired from all these Lighting’s traps and stuffs. Yusaku needs a quick break. Poor Yusaku needs some rest. He really needs it now more than anyone. So, can we?”

Yusaku looked at the babbling Ignis, a strange feeling bubbling up within him, and he wanted to smile, but that was not the right time to do that. He needed to apologise to Ai later for glaring at him too. 

Flame sighed and gave Yusaku an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Yusaku. You must be really exhausted now, I shouldn't persist to ask further when you are not feeling well. If you need to call it a day, please do so. Right, Takeru?”

“No sorry for me?” Ai asked.

“You’re not even feeling tired.” Flame replied blankly. “You look fine to me.” 

Ignoring Ai’s huffing with puffy cheeks, Takeru agreed with Flame on getting a break. He looked at Yusaku with a tiny smile. 

“Yusaku, don’t push yourself too hard. We can discuss this later. ” 

Kusanagi nodded. “Do you want to go home, Yusaku? I can give you a ride back.” 

Yusaku shook his head. He resisted the urge to poke Ai’s puffed up cheeks. “No, I just need some fresh air. I will be back soon.” 

With that, he left the truck at a fast pace with Ai inside his Duel Disk without turning back. 

* * *

“When are you going to tell them? That you’re not the Yusaku they know.” Ai asked after Yusaku left the truck hastily and walked for some distance from the vehicle. The Ignis didn’t understand why this Yusaku acted so nervous in front of their companions. Maybe he could ask him about it later. 

The truck was parked at the higher ground of the outskirts of Den City, the panoramic view of the city from here looked similar to Yusaku. He stared into the distance, his mind wandering elsewhere, eventually thinking of someone he already missed despite only just a few hours passed ever since he logged into Link Vrains and woke up to this. 

He closed his eyes to feel the wind that blew in his face, but immediately sneezed lightly of the coldness. He forgot that winter was coming soon, and that was in his own world. 

Ai immediately warned Yusaku. “The weather is getting colder, you should be more careful of it. And I didn’t manage to tell you to grab your scarf before you leave, because you left too fast.” 

“I can endure the cold.” Yusaku replied with no concern about the cold weather. “Maybe I will tell them later, but not now. Just not now.”

Ai didn’t feel like pushing further of the asking, as he could tell the other didn’t want to talk about the current matter, at least for now. “Ok then. So what are you going to do now?”

Yusaku knew exactly what he was going to do and plan, and he also knew what he wanted to achieve, but the problem was, he couldn’t really do it all by himself, alone. It would take a lot of efforts and he feared he might not have enough time. He could ask for some help from the Dark Ignis, since they were having the same goal of switching both Yusaku back to their body, and to get the other Yusaku back to this world. And to get himself back to his world. 

Even so, getting help from the Dark Ignis was not enough. He needed someone who could create and solve the Ignis algorithm with skills. And there was only one person he knew of having that skill besides Dr. Kogami, the creator of the algorithm, and also the Ignises. He wanted to think that this world was likewise.

Out of personal reasons, he actually was quite curious about that person in his mind of this world. If everyone he knew was here, he might be existing here in this world too. Maybe he should take the risk to contact the person. But first, he needed to make sure he was not wrong of his inference. 

“Ai?” The said Ignis responded to him with his head turned to him. “Can you tell me who created you all?” 

“Us? Well, we’re created by Dr. Kogami Kiyoshi. Oh, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have Ignis back in your place?”

Yusaku nodded. “We do, that is why I know about your kind's existence. And they’re created by the same person too.” 

“Wow, that just sounds strange and peculiar, thinking that there’s another me in another world.”

Yusaku swallowed hard, then bit his lip in thought. He asked Ai again. 

“Does Dr. Kogami… have a son?”

Ai replied without thinking much. “Yes. Kogami Ryoken. But why do you want to know that? He’s our en—”

Yusaku interrupted Ai in a flash. “Can you perhaps... help me with something? I want to send out a private message.”

“Huh? Who do you want to send to?” Ai asked with curiosity showing on his face, but was quickly replaced with suspicion upon realization. “Wait… are you trying to… do what I’m thinking you want to do now?”

Yusaku took a deep breath, then replied Ai.

“I want to meet the Kogami Ryoken of this world.” 

* * *

When Yusaku woke up again, he found himself on a very soft bed, in a different room from where he was before fainting. He got up in a sitting position and saw Ryoken sitting at the edge of the bed, sliding the screen of his smartphone with his thumb. Sensing the shuffling movement beside him, Ryoken pocketed the smartphone and turned his head, giving Yusaku a good view of his warm smile. Yusaku forgot to breathe for a second. He must be hallucinating, that Ryoken would smile at him like that.

The older teen didn’t say anything and walked out of the room. Yusaku watched him go out in silence. Even if he wanted to say something to Ryoken, he didn’t know what to say anyway, so staying quiet was his own option. 

A few minutes later, Ryoken came back with a glass of water. He handed the glass to Yusaku, the latter took the glass and slowly drank the water from it. He didn’t realize he was very thirsty. 

They didn’t exchange any words. Ryoken sat back at the side of the bed facing Yusaku, who was drinking his water quietly. 

“Feeling better?” Ryoken asked with a soft tone, watching Yusaku finish his drink. He then took the empty glass from the younger teen. 

“Thank you for the water… and yes. I’m feeling better now.” Yusaku replied while swallowing down all the things he in truth wanted to express. 

Yusaku stiffened when Ryoken placed his palm on his forehead, checking his temperature. Both of them kept their eye contact, making the younger teen flushed lightly and didn’t dare to move even an inch. Ryoken’s eyes were so blue that Yusaku felt like drowning in it like drowning in the vast sea. 

“You don’t seem to have a fever, that’s good,” Ryoken retreated his hand and smiled softly at Yusaku. “I’m scared you might be getting ill.” 

Again, Yusaku didn’t know how to respond to the smile the older teen gave him. He shifted awkwardly and pulled at his shirt sleeves. Then he realized he was not wearing his school uniform. He didn’t remember changing his uniform out. And he felt something was wrong. 

“Where’s my Duel Disk?” Yusaku asked when he remembered about Ai. There was no sign of his Duel Disk attached on his wrist. Ryoken looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, then pointed at the nightstand beside the bed. 

“I left your Duel Disk there. You don’t really need it when you’re resting,” Ryoken watched Yusaku stare at the newer model Duel Disk in disbelief, eyes widened as if he had seen something extraordinary. “Why? Did your Duel Disk malfunction?”

Yusaku picked up the wristband-like Duel Disk. It was the same model as Revolver’s, but instead of gold and white, this one was red and blue. And of course Ai was nowhere to be seen inside this Duel Disk. With panic arising within him, Yusaku murmured to himself, clutching the ring of the Duel Disk forcefully.

“This is not my Duel Disk…” 

Ryoken heard it and blinked with confusion. “Yes it is. You had been using it ever since I gave you the Duel Disk as a gift.” 

“A gift?” Now Yusaku was as confused as the older teen in front of him. Since when Ryoken would give him gifts? 

“Yes. You said you always wanted the same model as mine. So I bought one for you. Yusaku, are you sure you’re not feeling sick? You’re still acting weird.” 

Yusaku quickly shook his head. “No! I’m totally fine. I’m just.... I think I might just need more rest. I’m still feeling a bit dizzy.”

He needed some time alone right now. He needed to be alone to clear his head, and having his rival acting so differently to him was making him more and more confused and anxious. He needed to know where Ai was too. 

Ryoken sighed and replied with a bitter smile. “I will let you have your rest then. If you ever need me, I will be in the living room.”

Instead of standing up from the bed, Ryoken kept staring into Yusaku’s eyes, which made the latter feel nervous for some reason. There was no emotion detected from the stare, it was just a blank stare, as though he was waiting for something to happen.

Just when Yusaku wanted to ask about it, Ryoken looked away and stood up, leading himself to the door.

After seeing the older teen walk out of the room and close the door, Yusaku lay down on the bed, left arm covering his eyes. He actually didn’t feel like sleeping now, he wanted to seek answers for why Ryoken was acting out of character, or so he thought. 

Or maybe, this had something to do with the _other him_ he saw back in the mirror room. He vaguely recalled being trapped in the mirror room, and the thing that puzzled him the most was the contrasting reflection of his, or should he say, his _doppelganger_. 

He couldn’t comprehend much of the circumstances. Ai went missing, along with his old-modeled Duel Disk. In return, he had this newer model that he didn’t remember using it ever once before. 

All of a sudden, an image flashed into his mind. He actually saw this Duel Disk of the same colour and model before, and he saw it just very recently. He didn’t catch the thing clearly, but he could recognize the colour. Red and blue and white beneath the ring. Then Yusaku’s eyes widened slightly with bewilderment. 

It was the Duel Disk on his _doppenganger’s_ wrist. It was _his_ Duel Disk. 

He ran into the bathroom through the other door and searched for a mirror, eventually found one above the sink. He looked into it and found that he still looked like himself; the pink and blue hair, the green eyes, and his tired-looking face. He was wearing a plain dark shirt with long sleeves, which he thought he didn’t own one. He did look like himself, but somehow he felt like he was not himself for some sense, like this body was not his. 

He retreated back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, holding the Duel Disk on his hand. He was utterly confused with the changes around him without any warnings. But it did help him to explain why he was in a totally different place. 

Maybe, just maybe, he accidentally went to the other side of the mirror, where a different world his _doppelganger_ was. Did that mean he was trapped in his body? If that was what really happened, where was the other him?

He fruitlessly walked around in the bedroom in circles for an hour, because he was too dazed until he started to count the time he had stayed in the room. There were three reasons why he felt restless. One, he didn’t know how to deal with this situation, and there was no one he could talk to with this. Ai was the only one who might know about this, but he was not with him at the moment, same went for the other him. Two, if he really was in a different world, he needed to find a way back, and to make sure Ai was not in danger or captured by Lightning, who was the culprit of leaving them in this mess. He was worried about Ai’s safety. 

And three, he didn’t know how to face Ryoken who was outside in the living room, which was why he hesitated to leave the room. 

What if all his assumptions were wrong after all? What if it was a prank from Ai, that he was hiding and watching him somewhere in this mansion. But that wouldn’t be true at some point, because his rival won’t cooperate with the Ignis in doing this kind of nonsense, and he won’t even let him stay in his house. 

After hesitated long enough, he finally decided to leave the room and meet Ryoken in the living room. Constant surmises without answers lead him nowhere. He might get some answers along the way, isolating himself in the room wouldn’t help after all.

He walked down the stairs and spent some time finding the living room. When he finally reached, Ryoken was sitting on one of the expensive looking couches, staring into the distance of the panoramic view of the ocean. He just sat there quietly without doing anything else, but he immediately lifted his head up to look at Yusaku who had stood beside him. 

Yusaku’s lips pressed together in a thin line as Ryoken gave him that too gentle smile. The older teen stood up and walked towards him. Yusaku realized again that Ryoken was indeed taller than him. 

He froze when Ryoken took one of his hands and gently caressed it. It made him want to dash out of the house, or slap himself for overreacting. Or maybe both. 

Ryoken looked at him with that look he swore he hadn’t seen before, because he didn’t know how to describe it. 

“You ok there?” Ryoken asked him. 

Yusaku nodded stupidly, and felt his ears heating up when Ryoken chuckled softly. 

“I’m going to the kitchen for refreshment, do you want coffee or tea?” 

Yusaku immediately replied ‘coffee’ without thinking much, Ryoken nodded and went to the kitchen, leaving the bemused teen standing alone in the living room. 

Yusaku quickly snapped out of his sudden blankness of his mind and collected himself. He went to sit on one of the couches, staring at the coffee table in front of him. He was too busy in thoughts that he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching.

Ryoken put a bowl of green and red apples on the coffee table and glanced at Yusaku who was sitting obediently on the couch in front of the table, and actually jumped a bit when he saw him. Yusaku stared at the fresh-looking apples, not knowing what to do with them. Maybe the Yusaku in this world liked apples, or he had a habit of eating an apple on a daily basis. 

“Here.” Ryoken smiled at the younger teen and said before he left again to the kitchen. “You always like to have an apple whenever you’re feeling down. I had washed them for you.” 

Yusaku went with it and nodded without hesitation. He picked up one shiny red apple and eyed it on his hand. He then took a small bite on the surface and slowly chewed the piece of fruit, savouring the sweet and juicy taste. Ryoken came back and put down a mug with steamed coffee in front of the eating teen. Yusaku could smell the strong aroma from the mug. It smelled expensive to his liking. 

Ryoken sat at the opposite couch, facing Yusaku and drank his tea from his mug. 

“How was the apple? Spectre picked them from the fruit store. He always knows which apples are the freshest to pick.”

Yusaku nodded again and took a last bite from the apple, which only the core was left. “It was good. Fresh.”

Ryoken smiled, sipping tea from his mug. “Spectre would be happy to hear that.”

Yusaku picked up the mug and gently blew the steam from the beverage. He could feel the gaze from the white-haired teen, staring at his every movement. He took a sip of the coffee. It might be the taste of some pricey coffee beans. He knew cheap coffee didn’t taste like this. He only drank instant coffee in his whole life, never coffee made from expensive beans.

“How are you feeling now?” Ryoken put his mug on the coffee table and looked at Yusaku, who did the same with his mug. His sitting posture looked graceful, even with his legs crossed. Clear blue eyes watching him with serious expression. 

Yusaku wanted to convince himself that he was fine, but in fact he was not. He still had no clue about what to do next. 

But for now, he had to reply Ryoken before he suspected something. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to keep his identity and all the things he encountered a secret from him. 

“I’m feeling fine.” Yusaku responded carefully, not to spill out something he shouldn’t. “I just can’t remember what had happened to me.”

It was a half lie, he just knew he was dragged into the darkness and fell unconscious. After that, he had no clue of what had occurred to him. Part of him was relieved that he was no longer in Lightning’s trap, which he didn’t manage to find out the motive of him creating that program, and part of him felt bewildered that he ended up with Ryoken in his mansion, instead of Kusanagi-san’s truck. 

He picked up the mug again and continued to sip his coffee in a very quiet manner, maybe too quiet and unnatural, as Ryoken chose to break the silence. He really wished Ryoken could just ignore him and stop asking him questions that he was scared to answer because he knew he didn’t have the confidence to answer them all correctly. 

“Do you have anything to ask me? You look like you want to say something.” 

Yusaku put down the mug and forced himself to remain a blank face, avoiding eye contact with Ryoken. “Uh… not really. I’m just wondering about something.” 

“Is that so? Well then, if you don’t mind, I have a question for you.” Yusaku froze almost immediately. “I hope you can answer me honestly.” 

Yusaku felt a sudden chill up his spine, as the smile on Ryoken’s face immediately disappeared, his sudden glare became dangerous and cold, his posture was in a relaxed mode, like he was having just a casual conversation with him, but his expression was telling otherwise. Yusaku felt like a thief getting interrogated by a police officer, and there was no way he could run away from the room. 

“So, tell me. Who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the second chapter! I hope you enjoyed it! (I'm so bad at making summaries.) 
> 
> From next chapter onwards, there will some chapters with Side A and Side B. Side A will be the Yusaku we know, and side B the Yusaku from another world. And some might be half side A and side B, just like how this chapter went. I hope it was not too confusing to read. 
> 
> Thank you for reading again! I would absolutely love to know about your thoughts. Comments are welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side B (Yusaku from the different world) for the first part and Side A (Yusaku from the original world) for the second part

As soon as Yusaku proposed what he wanted to do next, Ai had a feeling that things would go beyond his expectations. Just like when he couldn’t predict the plot twist of some dramas or soap operas that he watched together with Roboppi. They could be complicated sometimes to understand, but he found them entertaining at the same time. 

“You seriously want to do that?” Ai had too many questions in his head, including the intention of calling the leader of Knights of Hanoi, who was their enemy, their adversary ever since long ago. Out of many options they could actually go with, Yusaku chose the least expected one. “And, I don’t even have his number.” 

“I have, just...” Yusaku said, but immediately hesitated. “I need to give it a try. I can’t guarantee if he has the same number.”

Yusaku wanted to take a bet. He had his way to contact Ryoken, be it his phone or his Duel Disk’s mailbox system, but the number and information he had on his hand was of the Ryoken back in his world. That was why he wouldn't be sure if it worked. Even so, he still wanted to try it out. 

He gave the number to Ai, and Ai also took immediate action with lesser doubt, sending out the message Yusaku wished to convey. The message was short, briefly about him facing an urgent matter involving Lightning’s issues, and he suggested that they meet up right now. As for the location, Yusaku picked the most familiar place he could ever remember, the Stardust Road. From where he was now, it might take more than an hour to reach there. He decided to just run to the location. To shorten up the time, he started running down the road in a moderate pace while peeking at Ai once in a while to see if he got dizzy from all his running. Well, Ai had gone back into the Duel Disk when he started his run, a visible eyeball shaped thing residing in the purple orb. 

“You sure he’s going to show up?” Ai asked from the Duel Disk, and Yusaku answered back without slowing down. 

“I don’t know. Do you think he will? You know him better than me.” 

“I don’t really agree with the last part, but you did mention about Lightning, I guess he wants to get more information about him from us. Lightning is hiding somewhere we can’t reach or track him down, and everyone’s getting more and more restless now. I don’t know about Revolver, but maybe he and the Knights of Hanoi have trouble tracking down Lightning too.” 

Yusaku absorbed the information and thought deeply. There were so many things he needed to understand and seek out. But it was no use rushing, he would have to get them one step at a time. 

* * *

It took thirty minutes for Yusaku to reach Stardust Road, and someone was already there before him in the empty area. There was no one else there which was what Yusaku felt glad about, as there won’t be anyone eavesdropping on them.

He slowly walked towards the familiar silver-haired teen, and his heart pounded hard when clear blue eyes locked with his green eyes. He couldn’t help but step forward to go closer, however he went stiff and stood still when those eyes stared hard right at him, and he felt a strangeness in it. 

“Playmaker,” Ryoken said without wasting any time. “What is the meaning of this? And how did you know my number?” 

So it really works, Yusaku thought. But what made him puzzled was the way Ryoken addressed him. They were not in Link Vrains, but the person in front of him insisted on calling his avatar’s name, with reason he didn’t know. Should he mention it? Forcing down a gulp, Yusaku looked back with confidence because he knew he needed it. He needed that desperately. 

“Pure luck. I guess,” The answer was ridiculous even to his own ears. “And you chose to come here, instead of ignoring the message.”

“Normal messages and mails won’t get through with the set up security measures, and the message was sent to my Duel Disk transferred automatically from my phone, which I had traced the Dark Ignis’s code from,” Ryoken looked at Ai. “Don’t ever think of doing anything suspicious.” 

“I’m just trying to contact you! That’s all! Only because Yusaku really wants to meet you,” Ai immediately retorted back with a slightly irritated tone, folding his arms. “If not for that, why the hell would I contact you?” 

Yusaku realized something different from what he had in his mind, he looked at Ai with a confused look which Ryoken mirrored. “Ai, why are you upset about this meeting? Is something the matter?” 

Ai put up a ‘let me explain’ look, and ignored Ryoken’s growing confusion on his face.

“Oh, right. I haven’t told you about that. Now you listen carefully to me, Yusaku-chan. This guy here,” he continued while looking back and forth at Ryoken and Yusaku. “Is the leader of the Knights of Hanoi! And he wants to kill me! And all the other Ignises! Like every moment now! So he’s clearly our enemy! It’s only natural I want to avoid him.” 

Ryoken being the leader of the well-known cyber terrorist group in Link Vrains and the annihilation of Ignises was not new to Yusaku, but Ai’s words had made him finally figure out the matter that bothered him the most. Back from where he woke up from this conscious data switching, he firmly believed that Ryoken would be his ally to fight their enemy together. But alas, that was not the case at all. He was wrong about that thought. He blamed itself for being so foolish in jumping into that conclusion so soon. 

Seeing no reply from Yusaku, Ryoken said with a straight face. “Dark Ignis, I don’t understand your explanation of my avatar’s identity to Playmaker. He should have known that for years. What are you trying to accomplish?” 

“Yeah, you’re right. How could we not know about that. But this Yusaku might not,” Ai replied with a monotone voice. 

Yusaku wanted to make sure he was not hearing things wrongly, so he asked Ai again for confirmation. 

“You’re saying... that Ryoken is our enemy? Yusaku’s enemy?” 

He noticed Ryoken flinched when he said his name, and his expression was not pleasant to look at at all. It made Yusaku somehow feel alarmed, because he didn’t like to make Ryoken angry, the Ryoken he knew to be specific. But he didn’t want to make this Ryoken upset to worsen their conversation.

“Totally correct,” Ai replied. “I’m trying to tell you that piece of information, but you interrupted me every time when I wanna do that.” 

“Oh. I‘m so sorry about that,” Yusaku gave Ai a very sincere apologetic look that the Ignis waved his hand rapidly back at him.

“That’s all right! Don’t worry about it, now you know what you need to know,” Ai looked back at Ryoken. “So, are we going to tell him that?”

“We need to tell him. I don’t want to make things complicated,” As if the situation he was facing now was not complicated enough. 

“You’re already making things complicated, Playmaker,” Even if Ryoken was showing a blank expression, Yusaku could still sense his impatience. “What exactly are you and Dark Ignis talking about? And what do you mean by urgent matter from your message? And also about Lightning.” 

“Ryo-” Yusaku clamped his mouth shut and flinched slightly when Ryoken stared hard at him. The taller teen didn’t not show any smile at all ever since their meeting, which somehow really bothered Yusaku.

“Please don’t call me that,” Ryoken exclaimed. “I don’t remember us being that close, Playmaker.” 

That was not what Yusaku had expected, not in the slightest. He was very curious, but now was not the time to react to that. Feeling a slight frustration, he just nodded and restrained himself to start a minuscule argument with this Ryoken. He was tired of arguments anyway. 

“Understood. Then I will just go straight to the point. I’m not who you think I am. I’m Yusaku but I’m not the Yusaku you know. And about Lightning, this has something to do with him.” 

“Wow, that was really straightforward,” Ai said first. 

Ryoken couldn’t follow his words at all. “Pardon? What are you trying to say?” 

“If I’m correct about your role, you must be monitoring the whole network, tracking Lightning’s location.”

Ryoken gave Yusaku a cautious look, then realized what the other was trying to say. “You know about it, don’t you.” 

Ai became confused by hearing their exchange, he looked at Yusaku for some further explanation. “Know about what?”

“He knew about the appearance of the portal created by Lightning, and about Playmaker going into it. But I don’t really know much about the details of him inside the portal. But I assume you want to know too, right?”

Yusaku looked into Ryoken’s blue eyes, and he admitted, that was a familiar pair of eyes he saw everyday, but this one mixed with emotions he couldn’t comprehend. 

“You’re right about that, whoever you are. I discovered the portal, and we knew it was programmed by the Light Ignis, but before we could investigate further, the portal disappeared once Playmaker was pulled into it. Soulburner stayed at the location with Fire Ignis, I believe they were trying to find a way to make the portal reappear. However he logged out an hour later. The portal was still not there.” 

Yusaku guessed Takeru and Fire- Flame must have wanted to tell him that, but he chose to flee from the truck at that very moment before they could further discuss the serious matter. 

“He logged out because we logged out too,” Ai explained. “But something unexpected happened when we were inside the portal. We were in a mirror room, then Playmaker and I saw one of his reflections, different from the rest. He touched the reflection and was suddenly in pain! Then he fainted, I don’t know what happened, then we were successfully logged out for some unknown reason. Then when Yusaku woke up, he was like this. He said he’s from the other side of the mirror.”

Ryoken seemed to have a hard time understanding Ai’s explanation, so Yusaku summarized them for him. 

“To put it simple, my conscious data had been swapped with Yusaku, the Yusaku you know in this world. In other words, he was transferred to my world, staying in my body while I’m staying in his.”

“Is that even possible?” Ryoken said with a baffled tone. Yusaku smiled bitterly. 

“It was hard to believe, but anything is possible. And it won't do me any good to lie to you.” 

“Why are you telling me this then? You should have known that the Playmaker in this world are still an enemy to me.” 

“But aren’t you—” Ai wanted to interrupt, but failed when Yusaku cut his words off. 

“I understand the situation. You don’t have the obligation to actually help me with anything, considering we’re… enemies,” The final word tasted bitter when Yusaku said it. He never even dreamed that such a thing could happen to him. Okay, maybe he did dream of Ryoken becoming his enemy between all those nightmares, he just didn’t want to recall all those unpleasant things, especially not now. He forgot most of them anyway. “But I think you need to know this.” 

Ryoken didn’t even waver when he knew about Yusaku’s state, and Yusaku was uncertain whether he should feel disturbed that Ryoken seemed to not care about what happened to him and the other Yusaku, or admired that the leader of Knights of Hanoi could still be composed and calm. 

“What happened to the Yusaku we know? You said he’s in your world right now,” Ryoken asked, and Ai also wanted to know about it as he looked up at the periwinkle-haired teen. The said teen gave them a firm look as a reply. 

“I can reassure you, that he will be fine,” At the next moment he gave a weak smile to both Ryoken and Ai. “Just that he might have something he has to deal with.”

Ryoken arched his eyebrows, and Yusaku caught a tiny hint of concern on his face, although it faded very quickly. 

“What is it?” Ryoken asked. “Is he in danger? What exactly did you do back in your world before you came here?” 

When Ai heard that, he looked very worried, and kept asking him about his origin’s well-being. Looking at the Ignis, Yusaku felt a pang of envy— that within his mind he knew his Ignis would not act and react the same. 

Ryoken saw the sudden expression change in Yusaku. He looked sad despite the tiny smile, that he somehow thought it might be a little forceful, not genuine enough. 

The smile was immediately gone and Yusaku looked up to face Ryoken. “No. he’s not in any sort of danger. If the danger you mean is about Lightning, I can reassure you again, he’s in safe hands.”

“Who?” Ai asked curiously. “Is he with Kusanagi or Takeru?” 

Yusaku shook his head lightly. “The answer would be no again. Ai, I think you can figure it out easily.”

“Huh? Wait, let me think let me think. Don’t tell me yet. I think I can answer this fast,” Ai thought hard about the answer, like he was participating in a quiz competition, so that he could win a prize if he got the answer right. But Ryoken said it out before the Dark Ignis could even think of any possible response. 

“Is he with _me_?” When Ai saw Yusaku nodding at the answer, he screamed. 

“What!? But why— Oh right! Back in Link Vrains, you were wearing the uniform! Now I get it!” Ai stared at Yusaku with widened eyes. “Wait, what!? You’re a member of the Knights of Hanoi???” 

“Precisely. I’m part of the Knights of Hanoi, and Revolver is my leader, so it's unquestionable that he's with him,” Yusaku glanced at Ryoken. “Do you find that hard to believe?”

“Is this what you said about one of the different reflections, Dark Ignis?” After Ai nodded, he looked back at Yusaku and continued. “There’s no point in telling me this, I couldn't care less of who you are, or who you’re with in your life. I just want to know about Playmaker’s state.” 

Something in Ryoken’s tone hinted Yusaku that this Ryoken’s counterpart was somehow shook by the fact he was part of Knights of Hanoi. 

“He will not do any harm to him, I promise you. There’s no reason for him to do that.” 

Yusaku thought for a moment, wanted to maintain his eye contact with Ryoken, but the other had turned his head away which made him a little bit disappointed. He sighed and said out his proposal. 

“I know we’re supposed to be enemies, or whatever strained relations happening between you and Yusaku. But, I do need your help, in helping us to switch back where we are now. This is the reason why I want to meet you.”

Yusaku thought Ryoken might ignore him, but he replied to him after a few seconds of silence. 

“First of all, why me? You could have asked Playmaker’s teammates to help you.” 

The reaction Yusaku gave Ryoken was fast and evident. Ryoken arched his eyebrow when he didn’t receive an immediate reply from him.

From his body language, Ryoken noticed Yusaku shifted slightly and nervously from where he was standing, his eyes averted elsewhere. The younger teen became uncomfortable for some reason. Just as Ryoken wanted to say something to break the silence , Yusaku answered him.

“Because I only trust you, Ryoken.” 

“I told you not to call me that,” Ryoken retorted with a frown, startling the other. Yusaku chose not to pursue further into that once more and just nodded his head, face became glum. Yusaku repeated once again. 

“I only trust you. And not only because of that,” You’re the only person I could rely on. The thought echoed through his mind, and he had a feeling he should not say it out. “You don’t want Yusaku back from my world? Or you actually don’t care about all of this? Of what happened to Yusaku.” 

Ryoken was not pleased to hear that as he instantly showed a crossed face. 

“I didn’t mean anything like that, don’t just jump into conclusion without reasoning.”

“I apologise for that, just that you sounded like you don’t care, just like when you told me you don’t care about my life,” Yusaku replied. “But thank you for reading the message and coming here to meet me. You can actually decline whatever I asked for. I will admit, aside from seeking for your help, I’m curious about you, for personal curiosity.” 

Ryoken seemed a little shocked by Yusaku's frankness. “Are you always this straightforward?” 

Yusaku replied bluntly. “No, I don’t even trust people that easily. Let alone talk to strangers. But everything has its exception.”

The sincere smile Yusaku gave Ryoken was too much for the taller teen to handle, and he quickly turned away his face again to avoid both of their eyes locking. Yusaku didn’t feel bother about it this time and said something which caught Ryoken’s attention back. 

“If you think you have no reason to help me, I will accept it.” 

Ryoken replied almost immediately. “I didn’t say I won’t help. I just want to ensure if you really want this. I don’t want you to feel regret afterwards.” 

“Can you just quickly make up your mind?” Ai said impatiently. “We don’t really have all day.” 

Yusaku patted Ai’s head softly with one of his fingers to calm him down. Ai was surprised by the gesture and touched back his finger in confusion, but somewhat happy at the same time.

“I don’t understand the part about me regretting. Why would I feel regret?” 

”For reasons you won’t even understand,” The answer was vague, and Yusaku really wanted Ryoken to explain about it, but he kept it for himself at the moment. 

“Ryo-” Yusaku mumbled a soft ‘sorry’ and continued. “As I said, I trust you, and I trust you more than anyone, even if you’re someone I don’t know about here. And neither do you about me. But you’re still the person I feel like I can trust.” 

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere. You should just stop saying all that,” Ryoken responded bluntly. Yusaku felt crestfallen and he retorted back, much to his own surprise.

“I’m not trying to do such things!” Even if he knew this was not the Ryoken he knew, the cold stare he gave him was still hurt to look at. He didn't know why he could get this emotional and felt like leaving the place immediately, and he was thinking about to do that in his mind. “I’m not trying to flatter you into helping me. I’m just telling you what I truly feel. If you're really uncomfortable with this matter, please say so. And I will leave immediately. So that we won't be wasting each other's time more. I won’t even bother you anymore.” 

Yusaku turned his back to Ryoken without hesitation, starting to count the extra days he would have to spent in working alone in his mind, but was forced to stop moving forward when a hand grabbed his arm. 

“Wait.” 

Yusaku stood patiently. Seeing he was not going to walk away, the hand grabbing his arm slowly released him. 

“As I said, don't just quickly jump into conclusions. I will give you my full cooperation to assist you. But please remember this, I’m only doing this for Playmaker to return back to this world.”

Yusaku turned back to look at Ryoken. “If you really mean what you said, I will give you my gratitude.” 

Ryoken nodded slightly. “I meant what I said. But we’re just working temporarily for the matter. Your objective is to go back to your world, and my objective is to get Playmaker back.”

Before Yusaku could make a reply, Ryoken warned him. 

“Giving you my assistance doesn’t mean I will trust you completely. If you ever do something dubious, I will take immediate action in stopping you. Dark Ignis, you should keep an eye on him, he might take advantage of you.” 

“That’s harsh of you.” Ai said, glaring at Ryoken. “Yusaku won’t do anything like that!” 

“It’s okay, Ai. Better safe than sorry.” Yusaku stared at Ryoken and gave him a slight nod. “In that case, my purpose is achieved. We will exchange necessary information in our next meeting."

He then checked the time with Ai, and realized he took longer than he thought for this meeting. He needed to rush back to Kusanagi's truck as they might be still waiting for him. 

"I need to leave now, as someone is waiting for my return. I will inform you again as soon as possible.”

Ryoken understood the message and nodded. “Fine with me. I might as well take my leave.” 

Yusaku bowed politely at Ryoken and left Stardust Road. He missed the puzzled expression on Ryoken's face when he did that gesture. 

* * *

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” There was a strained silence after Yusaku blurted out the first thing that came up in his mind, which was not to make an odd reaction and pretend to be clueless. Ryoken didn’t seem to be convinced of it, he sat straight up and stared at Yusaku. 

“I have all day with you to talk about this,” Ryoken replied, his eyes focusing on Yusaku’s expression. “You know you can’t really fool me with all your acting. You didn’t even try to disguise him fully.” 

“I’m not acting.” Yusaku retorted. There went his effort to be clueless. “Why are you asking who I am. Are you doubting me? Don’t you trust me?” 

“I trust you, Yusaku. But I’m talking about him, not you. You’re not really Yusaku, are you?” 

Yusaku pursed his lips in a thin line. He sure didn’t know how to communicate properly with Ryoken, especially this Ryoken he just met. “What makes you think I’m not.” 

Ryoken lifted his hand and showed three digits of fingers to Yusaku. Yusaku flinched at the familiar number. 

“Three reasons. One, whenever I want to touch Yusaku on the forehead, even for temperature checking purposes, he always backs away. It’s a habit I have known for a long time. You didn’t react the same.” 

“But that doesn’t explain much alone with that.” 

“Two, Yusaku doesn’t drink coffee in the daytime, he only chooses to drink it at night. That’s another habit of his. Not once have I seen him drink coffee other than nighttime.” Ryoken pointed at Yusaku’s mug on the coffee table. 

Yusaku peered at the mug with half drank coffee in it. That was a false choice then. He should have chosen tea instead. 

“And three, Yusaku hates apple peels.” Ryoken smiled while saying it. “He really hates it so much that he refuses to eat the fruit unless it’s peeled. For some reason he’s really bad at peeling. I’m always the one to help him peel it. Don’t really want him to waste the flesh by peeling them off with the skin.” 

There was a fondness in Ryoken’s tone when he spoke of that, Yusaku lost his words and forgot how to react to that. That smile and tone was really foreign to him, especially when they were shown by his special person, which he was completely sure he never once saw this side of him. But he then realized he was actually being watched.

“Are you testing me just now?” Yusaku shot a glare at Ryoken, and he received a faint smile from his confident-looking rival. 

“What if I say yes? The moment you pushed me away, I already sensed something different from you. And what I did was just some small observations, to check if you’re really Yusaku, or some intruders who disguised him to get rid of us. I did what I had to. So, who exactly are you?” 

Yusaku went silent. He wanted to say something to defend himself but he couldn’t. It actually hurt to hear from Ryoken, even if this is not exactly the person he had in his mind, that he was an intruder to him. 

“Cat got your tongue?” Ryoken said, the smile slowly faded. “If you choose not to speak further, I will take your silence as a yes for my question.” 

“Why didn’t you just attack me.” Yusaku muttered. “I’m not exactly in the best of my condition now, so I’m sure you can do that easily.”

The smile on Ryoken now was glim, and he shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t just go around attacking people, unless I have to, for self-defense for example. And you’re not showing any attempt to perform violence. I had given you many chances to assault me, but you didn’t try to harm me.”

“Even with that, you still think I'm someone who's suspicious?” Yusaku tried again, and Ryoken stayed quiet, staring back at him with no further response. 

Guess it was no use to talk him into it. Yusaku heaved out a sigh. He wasn’t even trying to do anything funny or suspicious. 

“I don’t think my answers will satisfy you anymore,” Yusaku admitted. “I can tell you, that I have no intention in hiding myself.” 

“Then what’s your motive for deceiving me in disguising as Yusaku?” 

“I told you, I’m not trying to fool you, or deceive you. I don’t even have any motive to be in this situation. I just don’t know what happened to me. Also, I am Fujiki Yusaku, not whoever you think I am. I don’t need to disguise myself. Don’t speak like I’m an imposter.” 

Maybe he raised his voice and showed his anger when he said that, as Yusaku saw Ryoken’s cautious face turned perplexed, then finally sombre. The expressions change made Yusaku feel conflicted. His anger dispersed slowly with his sudden emotion. After a brief silence, the white-haired teen drooped his eyes and then smiled slightly at him. The smile was forced, even Yusaku could see that. 

“If you're here with no motive, do you mind telling me about your situation? ” Ryoken spoke softly, all the strictness and demanding tone were completely gone from his voice. “I will believe you of not trying to do some tricks. You don’t seem to be the type to lie to people. And I apologize for doubting you just now.” 

“You should doubt me. Because I’m not supposed to be here,” Yusaku replied without stammering his words, as he could feel himself starting to become nervous again.

“But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not Yusaku, the Yusaku I remember and know.”

“Indeed. I am Yusaku, but I’m not the Yusaku who you are familiar with, and I’m not even from this world, I believe,” Yusaku said.

“How did this happen?” 

“I suspect that we had been swapped by accident, though I don’t have any evidence to prove it. But I can feel that this body does not belong to me. Did you know where he went in Link Vrains?” 

A brief pause. Ryoken’s face was full with sorrow and regret. His reply had an uncertainty in it. “He logged in without me knowing. But… I think I know where he went. He must had gone to that portal Lightning created.”

“Didn’t you follow him?” 

Ryoken sighed. “He had persuaded me to take a rest before this, so I had retired myself to my bedroom, and he went there alone. When I found out about it, he, I mean you, already logged out. I should have predicted that, going alone like that was a risky move. He knew I would not be happy about this.” 

“I can see that.” Yusaku responded while looking at Ryoken. His now dead serious expression was similar to the Ryoken he was familiar with, with the eyebrows furrowing and pursing lips. Ryoken shut his eyes and mumbled. 

“Something must have happened back then. But I’m guessing this has something to do with the Light Ignis.” 

“Lightning? Is he plotting something here too?” 

Ryoken raised his eyebrow. “Lightning? You mean the Light Ignis?”

After Yusaku nodded, Ryoken added. “It’s really amusing to know there are Ignises in your world too, but at the same time, it’s quite interesting to know that they have names for you to address them.” 

Yusaku looked back at Ryoken curiously. “Don’t they?”

Ryoken shook his head. “The Ignises here don’t have those kinds of nicknames, and we don’t even bother to know or learn them. We just call them by their specific attributes. I assume Lightning is your enemy too?” 

"Yes. And he's a big threat to us."

Their mugs of coffee and tea had been forgotten long on the coffee table, as both of them didn’t take another sip of their drink ever since they started this conversation. Yusaku was starting to feel tired even though he had just woken up from a slumber not long ago. 

“I saw him. I met the _other me_ in his avatar,” Vibrant green eyes met with clear blue eyes. “In the portal, through a mirror. He was there, and I saw him shouting at something. But I don’t know what that was. And we had touched the same mirror at the same time, and I felt pain after that. That must be the time when we swapped. I don't know how it worked, unfortunately.” 

“We might need to look into this matter further.” Ryoken replied to him, then asked a question with concern. “But first, I need to know if Yusaku’s fine in your place.”

“If the swapping thing is true, then he would be with Ai, so he will be fine. He can take care of him.” Ryoken reacted strangely to the name.

“Who’s Ai? If I may ask.” 

Oh, right. They didn’t have names in this world. “Dark Ignis. His name’s Ai in my place.” 

“Dark Ignis? Why is he with him?”

“I captured him as a hostage, if you really want to know. That was a long story.” 

Yusaku thought it might not be a big deal or anything important, but Ryoken’s intrigue look said otherwise. 

“Interesting,” Ryoken said. “Is he showing any hostile behaviour towards you?” 

Yusaku was bemused by the question. “Not really.” 

“Even if he’s a captive?” 

“He had gotten used to it. Besides, he’s safer to stay with me. I’m not torturing him or something.” 

Ryoken nodded with understanding, ending the topic. Yet Yusaku had to get himself ready and prepare for any questions shot at him, including now and in the future. 

“I’m relieved to know Yusaku’s fine. Thank you for the information. I’m sure you’re really worried about yourself too.”

“It doesn’t matter, what I need to do now is to find a way to bring us back to where we are supposed to be.” 

“I will tell you everything you need to know. Just ask me questions when you have them.”

Yusaku was shocked at the sudden change of behaviour of the other who had just acted cautious and careful for some moment ago. This made him difficult to think properly.

“I don’t understand. I thought you’re supposed to be suspicious of me. Now you’re willing to help me?”

A subtle half-smile played at the corner of Ryoken’s mouth. 

“Don’t get me wrong. I still have that in my mind, but I would like to put some faith in you. What I’m sure is that you will not be an enemy to me. From what I heard from you, we have the same enemy, even though they are two different entities. Instead of us becoming hostile to each other, why don’t we work together to achieve what we want? Besides, I want my Yusaku back.” 

The last sentence made Yusaku shivered, he knew he was not talking about him, but it still had some effect towards him. 

“True enough. I don’t have any objection to that. I guess we have a lot of things to arrange.” 

Yusaku rose to his feet and was about to walk away when Ryoken halted him. 

“Where are you going?” Yusaku turned back to face him. 

“Since we need to look more into the situation, I need to start thinking up for a plan too.” 

“Yes, I understand that. But that doesn’t explain your action. Where exactly do you plan to go?”

Yusaku couldn't help but look at Ryoken in an incredulous way. 

“Going home, so I can work on forming a plan as soon as possible. I really need my laptop and necessary devices to do that.” 

Upon hearing the statement, Ryoken gave out a small sigh with a tiny smile that Yusaku nearly missed. “It’s good to be productive, but if you want to go home, you’re already at your home.” 

Yusaku stood awkwardly, feeling a bit winded. And he wasn’t ready for what the other had said next to him. 

“You still don’t get it?” Ryoken stared at Yusaku with an amusing smile. “You’re staying with me, in this house. This is Yusaku’s home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is here! Thank you for reading this chapter and I hope you enjoyed it! Stay save everyone!


	4. Chapter 4 (Side B)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side B: Yusaku from the different world 
> 
> Even though it's official that Roboppi is a boy, I still decide to use her/she pronouns for Roboppi for her robot form, as Roboppi really sounds like a cute little girl with that voice in that form. ;;w;;

Yusaku had prepared himself for their reactions when he told them the truth. About him not being their known friend, about him not the Fujiki Yusaku they knew. He had quickly come back to the truck as soon as he finished the meeting with Ryoken and told his counterpart’s companions about his identity right on the spot. He finally had the courage to tell them, and he realized he couldn’t keep delaying on doing so, because he might forget about it completely when he was too focused on other tasks or matters. Besides, there would be a risk that they would get suspicious of him in later days. It might be too late to explain to them when that happened. 

At first, they didn’t believe what he had said, especially Takeru who claimed Yusaku was just too tired from all the investigation in Link Vrains. Flame asked if Yusaku had hit his head or got injured during the walk, and he got an answer ‘no’ from Ai. Kusanagi didn’t believe either at the beginning, however he hesitated when he looked into Yusaku's eyes. 

“He’s not lying,” Kusanagi said with a pale face. “Just what exactly happened back in Link Vrains?” 

With what he had promised, Yusaku gave them the necessary information they needed to know about the portal, the mirror maze, the mirror room, and about his conscious data swapped with the other Yusaku. But he omitted the part of how the swapping incident happened. They just needed to know that he was not the Yusaku they knew at the time being. 

“Why would Lightning build such a program?” Flame asked in a firm voice. Ai shook his head in return.

“Absolutely no idea. There’s nothing inside there, except mirrors mirrors mirrors everywhere. Then we found the other Playmaker, and this happened.”

“We need to do something about it!” Takeru shouted in panic. “What if Yusaku is in danger?” 

“About that, you don’t have to worry about it. Someone will look after him, he’s safe there,” Yusaku tried to calm Takeru down. “If you’re still worried about his whereabouts, I will make a confirmation myself within a few days. That he is indeed in my place.” 

Upon hearing that, Kusanagi nodded with slight relief. “If he’s not in any danger, then I won’t have to worry about it too much. Too many unexpected things happened at the same time, we don’t even have time to react.” 

Yusaku was sure he would get disapproval with what he was going to say next. 

“Please leave this matter to me. I promise you I will get Yusaku back safe and sound,” Yusaku said in a steady and polite tone, eyes searching for acceptance of his request, and to have faith in him from the other parties. 

“Wait, what do you mean? Don’t you want us to help you?” Takeru asked in utter confusion. Flame added with a similar reaction. 

“Are you saying you’re trying to do it all by yourself? That’s ridiculous. You should get help from us. We can work with this together to get the both of you back to where you are.”

“It’s too dangerous to get all of you involved in this, I don’t want all of you to get hurt,” Now come to think of it, Yusaku was kind of regretted that he asked Ryoken of this world for assistance, as he might put him in danger unknowingly, but what had been done was done. If Ryoken decided to stop helping him, he wouldn’t disagree with it. “It’s nice of you all to help, but, to be honest, you shouldn’t treat me nicely like this. And I have a valid reason for myself.”

“Wait what? I don’t understand! Yusaku, what are you talking about?” Takeru stepped closer towards Yusaku and gently put his hand on his shoulder. “Even though you’re a different Yusaku, you're still Yusaku, right? Friends should help each other when they’re in trouble.” 

Yusaku felt conflicted with that comment. Friends, right. Friends. But, did he really have them?

_He did not deserved to have friends. Never._

Yusaku shook his head to snap out of those haunting thoughts. He steeled himself and stared into Takeru’s blue eyes.

“There is something you should know about me, Kusanagi-san, Takeru, Flame,” Yusaku took a deep breath and looked at Ai for a second, then said at the three parties. 

“Back in my world, we’re not allies. We’re not even considered friends. That’s why it's kind of weird for me to talk with you all like this,” Yusaku couldn’t help but feel guilty again when he saw Takeru’s sad face. “But we do not have any hatred towards each other, at least, not anymore. ”

Yes, Yusaku reasoned to himself, they didn’t hate each other anymore, but he still couldn’t let it go, that he still thought they hated him for obvious reasons. They should hate him no matter what.

“Why?” Takeru asked in a heavy tone. “Why are we not friends?”

“Is there a reason for this?” Flame asked. Ai looked at Yusaku from the Duel Disk worriedly. 

“Because, I’m a member of the Knights of Hanoi,” Yusaku felt the atmosphere immediately turn tense, as if he had said something life-threatening. The others’ reactions to his stating of his identity were what he had expected. “I don’t think I should explain more. You should be very clear about this. Both of our worlds have something in common, but there are also some different changes, for example, the role of mine and the Yusaku of this world. I believe both of us had chosen a different path for ourselves.”

“Does that mean you’re on Revolver’s side?” Kusanagi questioned, and Yusaku nodded. “Why? Why are you helping him?” 

“I have my own reasons. That was a long story, and that’s not important for our situation now. What we can conclude is that Yusaku’s life is completely different from mine, and we’re not the same person, even if you consider us a same entity from different worlds, and both of the worlds just happened to connect with each other. But I can promise you all that I won’t do anything that will mess up Yusaku’s life. As you know I’m a Knights of Hanoi, but I will also promise not to put your Ignises in danger. Do you trust me? Ai? Flame?”

Maybe he spoke too much in one go, as Yusaku watched the other two humans become speechless, even Flame had become quiet all of a sudden. Ai broke the silent with a laugh.

“Of course I trust you, Yusaku-chan! If you really want to get rid of me, you should have done so. You don’t mind me calling you Yusaku-chan right?”

While Yusaku answered back ‘I don’t mind’ at Ai, Flame decided to speak at that moment.

“Even if you still sounded suspicious to me, you don’t seem to be a threat to us, even if you’re a Knights of Hanoi. Despite being a cyberterrorist, you look harmless, unlike Revolver.” 

The corner of Yusaku’s mouth lifted up slightly, forming a tiny smile which quickly faded. “Wait till you see my avatar, you’re not going to say the same thing ever.”

“But you don’t look that scary to me with that Hanoi uniform,” Ai pointed out with a grin. “You’re not even wearing those masks. Those masks might make you look scary.”

“Considering you need to figure out a way to go back to your place, and you really have no reason to harm us. If Ai chose to trust you, then I don’t have a problem in trusting you either. We will leave this matter to you then. We will continue to focus on tracking Lightning. But please remember that if you're facing any problems, we will come and assist you immediately. What do you think, Takeru? Kusanagi-dono?” 

“I still couldn’t believe all of this… but I guess we don’t have much choice either way,” Takeru looked at Yusaku. “I don’t know, but I have this feeling, that you are not the type to lie, just like Yusaku. So I will trust you.” 

“Thank you, everyone,” Yusaku smiled slightly and gave them a slight bow. “I meant what I said, I will bring Yusaku back.” 

“We will trust you. And we will not force ourselves to help if you don’t need it, but just call us anytime when you feel like getting some help from us,” Kusanagi reached out his hand and ruffled Yusaku’s hair. “Man, even if you’re a little different from the Yusaku we know, you still sound like Yusaku for sure. But I won’t allow you to just isolate yourself completely from us! Be sure to drop by sometimes at Cafe Nagi and give us some updates from time to time! Keep in mind that we’re not your enemies here, so you shouldn’t feel shy or scared of talking with us!” 

Yusaku blushed lightly at the kind gesture, and replied quickly. “I will remember that, thank you.” 

Takeru patted lightly at Yusaku’s shoulder, the sad expression was still visible on his face. 

“As Kusanagi-san had said, we’re not your enemies here. I don’t know what happened between us back in your world, but we won’t hate you for no reason. Just tell us when you changed your mind about needing our help. Okay? And I will be counting on you getting Yusaku back.” 

Takeru flashed Yusaku a big grin, the latter felt like hugging the other teen, but he refrained himself. He mumbled a soft ‘Thank you’ and Takeru gave him another smile. 

Yusaku felt a little at ease that he was somehow not being hated or questioned with an unfriendly manner, and at the same time he also felt happy for his counterpart to have these reliable companions by his side. Then he remembered that before he went back to the truck, Ai warned him not to mention anything about Revolver, because other than Kusanagi, Takeru and Flame didn’t know about the true identity behind the avatar, so it was better to keep their meeting a secret, unless they figured it out themselves. So he had to keep reminding himself not to spill anything of that.

* * *

After exchanging more information and some small talks between Yusaku and Takeru, Kusanagi stated it was time for the boys to go home, he drove Yusaku back to his house, to be specific, the other Yusaku’s house. 

So now he was standing at the entrance of the small residence, fidgeting and wondering how to start all of this, like, the very first step in deciding on living alone in an unfamiliar place. Ai popped out from the Duel Disk and poked Yusaku to grab his attention.

“The key for the door is in the blazer pocket. I saw Yusaku always put his keys in there.”

Ai was true. Yusaku found the key and unlocked the door. Gripping his bag tightly, he went inside at a very slow pace and started surveying the interior of the building. The place was quite cramped and lacked heating, as he could even feel the coldness inside this building. Heating system breakdown, perhaps? But Yusaku didn’t complain much about the cold, he was sure he could endure it fine. He peeped into the kitchen and bathroom, finding only daily necessities enough for a single person. So his counterpart did really live alone here. Yusaku found that saddening and lonely. 

He eventually reached the bedroom and put his bag down at the floor at the foot of the bed. He paused for a while, looking around the room. The bedroom was small, with only a few furnitures and Yusaku could see some of the walls were worn out, like they had not been repainted for a long time. Maybe his counterpart just didn’t care much about the walls, or neither about his living condition. 

“Welcome back, Master!” While he was zoning out, a cheerful voice greeted him, and Yusaku snapped out his thoughts and looked down to see a small pale cyan robot approaching him from the living room with a yellow smiling eyes icon showing on the black screen of her face. “Welcome back too, big bro!” 

Yusaku recognised this little robot, it was one of the earliest housework AIs sold throughout the city, but ever since the introduction of the latest and newer model of robot servants with higher and better functions as well as features, the earliest model had become less popular and less demanded, therefore it was out of production at the end. But the model could still be found in some of the shops in Den City. 

He stared at the robot, which he remembered the name for this model was ‘Roboppi’ if not wrong, and kneeled down to look at her closer. The robot tilted her head slightly and looked back at her master, showing a question mark icon on the face screen, while saying ‘Master?’ in slight confusion. 

Ai glanced at both the human and robot, then said, “Yusaku, this is Roboppi, this little fellow is the other you’s cleaning robot.” 

“As in like, a maid?” Yusaku asked back, eyes didn’t move away from Roboppi.

“Yeah. Robbopi’s job is to clean your room and take care of you like a maid, and she’s here as a company too, so the other you won’t feel too lonely. You seem very interested in Roboppi, haven’t seen one before?”

“I know about Roboppi, but I don’t have the chance to talk to one.”

“Haven’t thought of getting one?”

“Ryoken distrusts AI, so we don’t have any of those kinds in our house,” Yusaku replied. “It’s fine with me, as I don’t really need one myself. But I have to say, Roboppi’s cute.”

He patted Roboppi's head gently, and Roboppi’s face screen showed a blushing face icon, her pink mitten shaped hands cupping her own face. “Is Master calling me cute?!?!? Ohhh I’m so happy!” 

Seeing Roboppi spinning around in happiness made Yusaku form a tiny smile on his face. This was the first time he saw a robot become delighted after hearing a compliment. 

“Oh? You’re living with Revolver, right?” Ai asked curiously. “That makes sense though, since you’re working with him. So that means you live at that big mansion near Stardust Road!” 

Yusaku nodded. “Is the Revolver here living there too?”

“Yeah, that’s his house, but I think he’s not living there now, I believe.”

“What does that—” A rang of his phone cut off his sentence, and Yusaku fished out the phone from the other pocket after he had detached the Duel Disk and put it on the bed. He stood silently and looked at the screen of the phone. The screen showed an unknown number which Yusaku thought was very suspicious. Despite the call being doubtful, he still decided to pick up the call. 

“Hello?”

“Playmaker.” 

The voice made Yusaku respond at once, and what he blurted out without much thinking shocked Ai, even the person on the other end of the phone had become utterly quiet. 

“Playmaker, at your command,” Then he realized what he had said and clamped his mouth shut, heat started to crawl up his face. He used his other hand to cover his face in embarrassment and also to avoid himself to look at Ai who was gaping at him from the Duel Disk in amusement. The Dark Ignis then started to snicker and the laugh just made him even more embarrassed. 

It wasn’t really his fault to react that quickly, he had said that countless times whenever his avatar name was called by none other than his leader. Just one word of the name from _him_ , Yusaku will respond to that without delay and hesitation. It wasn’t even funny when both his and his counterpart’s avatar names were the same. 

“I’m sorry, please forget about that. That was stupid of me to say nonsense like that.”

Ryoken emitted a fake cough, changing the topic. 

“I assume you are back in Playmaker’s home?” 

Yusaku looked around the room, and saw Ai was still laughing. He didn't understand why it was that funny. “Yes, I’m… there.”

“Very well. I’m calling you just to make sure you’re not wandering around like a lost child.” 

That did make Yusaku annoyed. “I won’t get lost that easily. It’s still the same city as mine.”

“But you don’t know where Playmaker lives, do you? Kusanagi Shoichi took you back home, if it wasn’t for him, you will end up walking aimlessly in the city.”

“Now you don’t really need to worry anymore then. I’m not walking aimlessly like a lost child like you said. Are you calling me just to say this?” 

“No. Since I have taken the decision to call you, I will take this chance to ask you a question. When exactly do you want our next meeting at?” 

Straight away to the business, I see. Yusaku smiled. “Anytime, the sooner the better. You can decide the time and date.” 

“I'm thinking about tomorrow, but give me some time for arrangements. I will call you again when I have made my decision.”

“Okay,” Yusaku replied. “Thank you for the call. Anything else?” 

There was a silent pause at the other end, then a reply was said. 

“That’s all from me.” 

“Then I will see you at our next meeting,” With that, they ended their call, and Yusaku noticed Ai was flashing him a playful grin. He felt like burying his face into the pillow on the bed and pretending he didn’t say anything stupid. He absolutely knew what the Ignis was going to say next. 

“What was that just now?” Ai laughed. “I don’t know why but that’s so funny! Especially when you’re speaking with the same voice as Yusaku!” 

“That’s just a habit of mine in Link Vrains. I can’t believe I said that," Yusaku couldn’t stand Ai’s laughing anymore. “Stop laughing! That’s not funny at all.”

“If you say so. Oh man I’m gonna tell Yusaku when he’s back.” Ai finally managed to control himself from laughing. “You really sound like those Knights. I really can’t imagine him speaking in that manner.” 

“Because I'm one of them.” 

“Yeah yeah I know that. Anyway, I believe that’s Revolver calling you? What did he want?” 

“He wanted to make sure I had made my way back home safely.”

“So only now he’s showing some concerns? And that’s really unnecessary, he should know Kusanagi will bring us home safe and sound,” Ai rubbed his chin. “Any idea when to meet him?”

“He said he will call me once he has decided on the time,” Yusaku replied. “For the time being, I might need some time to figure some matters out. Something just troubled me from the beginning.” 

“Anything I can help?” Ai asked, and Yusaku smiled politely at Ignis's offer. 

“Thank you for asking, but not at the moment,” Yusaku took the Duel Disk and put it on the desk beside the bed. He sat slowly on the bed, facing the Dark Ignis. “I just need some time for myself.” 

After the exchange with Ai, Yusaku sat on the bed quietly alone, while Ai had decided to let the boy have his own time, knowing that this poor boy, despite being calm and collected for this whole incident, would definitely feel worried and uneasy. Maybe even helpless at some time, he thought further. 

When Yusaku was reflecting on all the possible causes and reasons of all this happening, he suddenly felt tired and sleepy when his body started to relax sitting on the bed. He shook his head and tried to keep himself awake. This was not the time to fall asleep. He knew he was somehow stressing himself out from pushing too hard to find the solution for him and his counterpart to free from this trouble. When he was too stressed out, his mind would eventually end up somewhere else and couldn't concentrate on his actual objective. 

So, he needed to do something else now to temporarily distract himself from getting too stressed. He saw Roboppi doing her cleaning jobs at the corner of the room. Then, he thought of an idea.

He left the bed and walked towards Roboppi who was busy cleaning the floor with her little vacuum cleaners. He crouched down besides the little robot, and the said robot stopped what she was doing and looked at him. She flashed him a smile on the black screen. 

“Yes, Master? Do you need anything?” Ai emerged from the Duel Disk on the desk and was watching him with interest, and just decided to observe from a distance. 

“Can I help you with the cleaning?” Yusaku asked in a very soft tone, Roboppi tilted her head at the request. 

“Master wants to help me clean?” Then her screen showed a panic face. “Oh no! Master, you don’t need to do that! Cleaning is Roboppi’s job! You should rest!” 

“It would be faster with more help. Can I?” Yusaku worried he had asked something he was not supposed to, and requesting to help a housework AI with the job was already bizarre enough to some ears. He was just curious and wanted to do something for Roboppi, other than to relieve his stress. 

Roboppi’s screen showed a happy face icon after a few moments. “If Master is happy to help, then Roboppi will be really happy to let Master help Roboppi too!” 

Yusaku flashed a tiny smile at the agreement. “Thank you, Roboppi. Just tell me whatever you want me to do. I will give you my best effort.” 

Roboppi nodded happily and reached out to shake hands with Yusaku. “Let’s work hard together, Master!”

Yusaku spent the next hour cleaning his room, and helping Roboppi with all the houseworks. He actually enjoyed most of it, especially when he chose to talk with Roboppi who happily started a conversation with him during the process. All the responses from Roboppi were really adorable, which made Yusaku smile for the whole time. While he was doing his cleaning at the same time, he hoped his counterpart wouldn’t mind him touching and tidying up his things. Especially the laundries, as he hesitated for a moment and decided to ask Ai.

“Ai, is it okay if I do the laundry?” Ai perked up his head and then waved his hand.

“Go ahead. You’re going to wear his clothes anyway, and you need clean clothes for that. I’m sure Yusaku wouldn’t mind, he’s going to wear your clothes in return.” 

Yusaku nodded and went to do the laundry with Roboppi while listening to the little robot for instructions. Ai watched them during the entire cleaning, he was bored and at the same time curious about Yusaku’s decision to help. The teen was doing a good job too. 

When Yusaku was nearly done, Ai asked him. “You seemed to know what you’re doing.”

“I’m used to doing some house chores back at home. Have to keep the house clean while I’m taking breaks from performing my task.”

Yusaku finally finished the cleaning with Roboppi and changed into a clean T-shirt and plain black pants after a shower (He took quite some time staying in the bathroom to read the label on the shampoo bottle.) 

When he was done changing, he noticed that Roboppi was watching a drama he didn’t recognise from a small TV. He heard the little robot cry and moan about someone’s death from the show. Ai was watching the show together with her, occasionally complaining about the protagonist’s stupidity. Yusaku felt amused by the scene in front of his own eyes. 

It was very unusual for a robot to act and show emotions like a human, as if this robot had her own free will like the Ignis. Yusaku asked Ai out of sudden curiosity and suspicion. 

“Ai, did you do something to Roboppi’s program?” 

“Oh, how did you know about that?” Ai turned his head away from the TV and looked at Yusaku.

“She’s... acting too humanlike, and that’s not normal even for AIs.” 

“I did promise her to make her become smarter, that’s not really a bad thing. She’s just starting to develop a free will of her own, just like me!”

“Is that… even a good idea?” Yusaku whispered to himself, suddenly feeling concerned. “I don’t know, but I really have a bad feeling about this.” 

He said it by experience, as he was once told that the idea of having original AIs to develop a free will was possible, but the success rate was immeasurable, and the outcome was horribly unpredictable. Failures and corruptions of the data were also possible. It was not guaranteed that the Ais could withstand the amount of intelligence and development like Ignis. 

He could only hope things wouldn't go wrong. 

When he was about to reach for his Duel Disk, his phone which he had put on the desk rang. Ai looked at the phone curiously and left Roboppi to check the caller name. His yellow eyes widened and he turned his head at Yusaku.

“It’s Revolver,” Ai looked back at the phone suspiciously. “Just what does he want this time now?”

Yusaku picked up the phone and answered the call, and the familiar deep voice was immediately heard from the other side. 

“Playmaker,” Yusaku still hadn’t gotten used to the addressing in real life, and thought he would never get used to it. He had to make sure not to say anything foolish again. “Are you busy at the moment?” 

“...No? No, not really. I’m not busy. I’d just come out from the shower.”

“Good. Do you mind opening the door for me?” 

Yusaku was very fast in reacting to the message. He immediately rushed to the stairs and went to the front door, ignoring the sudden shout from Ai. 

As he thought, Ryoken was standing outside the door, holding the phone while his expression slowly changed to astonishment when he met with Yusaku’s viridian eyes. The taller teen might think Yusaku was way too fast responding to the call. Yusaku greeted the other and continued to ask for his sudden visit.

“This is just my opinion, but it’s rare for you to call me the second time, after when our previous call was just around two hours ago. Is there anything I can help you with?” 

Ryoken kept his phone away and stared right at Yusaku, sending a weird feeling to the younger teen. 

“I changed my mind. We should talk right now. Are you fine with that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading Chapter 4! Side A will be in the next chapter, with our Yusaku in the different world. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	5. Chapter 5 (Side A)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Side A: Yusaku from the original world
> 
> In which Yusaku learns something about his counterpart's identity.

Yusaku wished he heard that wrongly, but Ryoken’s repitition of the statement just made him feel more suffocated, that he really wanted to leave, but his legs was not listening to his mind. With how Ryoken stared at him with that steady gaze, he didn't dare to move and remained standing at where he was, just a few steps away from the couch. 

“You’re living here. So you don’t need to leave, or go anywhere else,” Ryoken then arched up his eyebrow when he saw Yusaku reacting with disbelief. “You didn’t seem to believe that.” 

“I— I thought I’m living elsewhere, alone.” 

“Well, the other Yusaku’s not living alone by himself,” Ryoken wanted to say something else, but Yusaku spoke out beforehand. 

“Is there anywhere else I can stay?” That question had Ryoken frowned. 

“You seem to be persistent in leaving here. Mind telling me the reason?” Ryoken stood up and faced him, and he could notice the younger teen’s discomfort. Yusaku stiffened when Ryoken took a step closer to him. 

Normally, if Yusaku were facing _him_ , he was sure _he_ would just let him leave without stating any reason, because this was not where he should stay long, and he himself knew by heart that he should not be here too. But things were different in this circumstance, _the other him_ was living here, this was his home, and he didn’t know exactly how long the _other him_ had stayed here with this Ryoken, but that did mean something, something that he had forgotten ever since they started their serious talk. 

Ah. Now he remembered. About the other Yusaku’s avatar’s uniform. He was so occupied with Ryoken that he somehow forgot about that important detail. The other him was wearing the uniform of Knights of Hanoi, it was impossible for him not to notice that, after all he spent most of his time in Link Vrains fighting the hacker group before the Tower of Hanoi Incident that he was extremely keen on spotting them. He had craved that image in his mind deeply, that he might remember them forever even if he hated so. 

That did really mean something, he was not stupid, and he could immediately tell that his own counterpart was part of the group, and if he was staying here with the leader, they were probably on good terms with each other, needless to say. What else could explain his counterpart living here other than that? 

Hostage? Yusaku doubted that. According to his viewpoint, a hostage wouldn’t get treated this nicely, like staying in a seaside mansion, able to roam freely indoors, and also getting cared for by the owner of this place. If his counterpart was really a hostage, he should be locked up in a room or somewhere secluded so that no one else could find him. 

He probably shouldn’t think of that, and also zoning out while Ryoken was waiting for him to respond. 

“Is it because of me?” 

Yusaku reacted to that at once and stared at Ryoken with bewilderment, the white-haired teen stared back at him with that smile which he caught a hint of bitterness from. He could see Ryoken was trying very hard to hide it, but Yusaku still managed to detect it. He himself also wondered how he could see it.

“Of course no—”

“I can see you’re lying,” Yusaku scowled lightly at that. There was one thing Yusaku could confirm at this moment, that both Kogami Ryoken were an expert in seeing through his lies, and he also found out that he was very bad at lying to his observant rival. It always worked on other people, minus Kusanagi-san who sometimes could figure out his intention to lie. But his rival, albeit always showing not much concern for him, could instantly point out his lie without hesitation. Most of them are white lies, as he really hated to lie to people he trusted, and he didn’t want them to be worried about him. 

He didn’t realize he had zoned out again until he heard Ryoken saying something that snapped out of his thoughts. 

“I’m just aware that you’re nervous whenever you’re around me. Even though it was a very short amount of time, I could see you tensing up whenever I tried to touch you. It was hard not to notice it. You’re too easy to read. So, I could only think that you’re not comfortable with my presence.”

Yusaku thought Ryoken didn’t notice all those physical reactions, but what the other had said proved him wrong. At the same time he wanted to disagree with the not comfortable part, yes, he did respond like he was uncomfortable with all the close contact, but he didn’t really feel that way. He was just confused and felt strange about it. He didn’t even have time to think straight whenever he was in contact with Ryoken. 

Ryoken lifted both of his hands like he was surrendering and looked at Yusaku, who was confused with the gesture. 

“I apologise for touching you, and invading your personal space before this. If you really hate it, you can tell me. Nobody would like to be touched by a stranger.” 

“You’re not a stranger, even though we just met, but I don’t think of you as a stranger,” Yusaku retorted so fast that Ryoken winced a little bit. “It’s just… it sounds complicated. I don’t know where to start. But before this, I just recalled something important that I want to ask you. Is _the other me_ … a member of your group?” 

Ryoken was quite surprised with the question, but soon a serious expression replaced the surprise. 

“You know about the Knights of Hanoi?”

Yusaku nodded. “And you’re the leader, aren’t you? The _other you_ is the leader of the Knights of Hanoi, a cyberterrorist group in my world.”

Ryoken bitter smile was back on his face. “Guess I don’t need to explain much for that. Seems like something just doesn’t change, despite both of our worlds having certain dissimilarity, in my opinion. I suppose both of us have the same goal, correct?” 

Yusaku nodded once more, and Ryoken’s smile disappeared in a flash. He remained silent for a while in deep thought, and finally replied to the question he had yet to answer. 

“Yusaku is one of my subordinates. He was assisting me in destroying the Ignis. Therefore, he is indeed a member of the Knights of Hanoi. You must have figured that out when you saw his avatar’s uniform.”

“But why?” Yusaku asked back, raising his voice with a slight confusion. “Why is he helping you in hunting them? Isn’t he supposed to stop you from doing that sort of annihilation? Like everyone else?” 

Ryoken furrowed his eyebrows, the glare he gave Yusaku was unfriendly, and Yusaku once again saw a reflection of a certain familiar rival in front of this person. He did not like where this was going. 

“I did promise you to answer any question you throw at me, but I don’t think I can answer you at this moment. Does knowing that have anything to do with our plan to get you back?” 

Yusaku immediately realized he had perhaps touched a sensitive subject which made Ryoken’s mood change out of the blue. Yet this response he received utterly increased his curiosity with adverse effect.

“Not really… I’m sorry for making you upset. I just… I just want to know why. I don’t have any clue of who the other me is.” 

Ryoken sighed with a slight irritation. “Please don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. But I can’t really answer you, and you don’t really need to know about it. I can only tell you that Yusaku is assisting me in hunting all the Ignises, and I didn’t force him to do anything he opposed to. That’s it.”

Yusaku was puzzled at that statement, and something heavy sinked down in his heart that made him feel breathless. Did that mean his counterpart was a cyberterrorist, who was an enemy to the Ignis? Cold immediately crept around him as he remembered that Ai was with him. Would Ai be safe with him? 

“Judging by your reaction, I assume you didn’t expect this,” Ryoken sat back on the couch and gestured to Yusaku to do the same. Yusaku sat down facing Ryoken and took a deep breath. Ryoken waited patiently with a blank face, and Yusaku couldn’t read his current mood at all. He was quite irritated just a few minutes ago, but now he was sitting in front of him like his mood change didn’t happen.

“It’s really hard for me to believe this, because to the other you, he sees me as an enemy, and we have been fighting each other ever since I have Ai— the Dark Ignis with me. The Knights of Hanoi is my enemy.” 

Ryoken intertwined his fingers and thought deeply, the obvious painful tone in his voice sent Yusaku quivering. “I see. You have a different life and goal from Yusaku. You must really hate them then.”

Yusaku shook his head. “That was the past. I had stopped seeking revenge, and I’m not holding any hatred towards them anymore. But we’re still enemies nevertheless, as long as they continue to hunt and destroy Ignis. As long as I’m at Ignis’s side.” 

“I know this is not the time to ask you about this, but I couldn’t stop thinking after you mentioned you being the enemy of the Knights of Hanoi. Are you… involved in the Lost Incident, like Yusaku?” 

Dread fell upon Yusaku. His throat had suddenly felt very dry, and he was lost for words. Fate seemed to be cruel to Fujiki Yusaku, a normal teen who just wanted to have a happy and normal life like others of the same age, and Yusaku once have this thought out of nowhere, that maybe Fujiki Yusaku from the other possible alternate universes or worlds might have a different life from his, having a life he wanted and dreamed. It seemed that even his counterpart couldn’t escape from this fate. 

“He… he was also a test subject? For the creation of AI with free will?” He heard Ryoken mentioning the existence of Ignis in this world, but after knowing that the other him was a Knights of Hanoi, he instantly had the thought that he was not one of the children, because no way he would work with the leader of the organisation, while on the other hand forcing himself not to think about Spectre’s case. Fujiki Yusaku was nothing like Spectre. His idea was then crushed quickly when Ryoken said the same fate of his counterpart. He was also involved in the Lost Incident like him. Something just didn’t really change, Yusaku repeated bitterly in his mind.

Ryoken dropped his solemn look and looked at Yusaku concernedly. Yusaku was starting to get annoyed with all the concerns from the other. Possibly due to that he had gotten used to his Ryoken being calm and stoic whenever they brought up this topic. He didn’t need pity from the others, especially from his fellow prisoner of destiny, who was also suffering from the same incident. He opened his mouth slowly and asked about something else, leaving aside that sour feeling. He wanted to know that something, even if the truth he received might painfully stab through his heart. 

“Does that mean, Dark Ignis was born from him?” Yusaku’s hands were trembling, and he tried not to stumble with his words at the same time. “The other me, the other Fujiki Yusaku, is the origin of the Dark Ignis?” 

When Ryoken said a familiar ID code , Yusaku froze.

“ _IGN006_ , the Control ID of Dark Ignis. And yes, the test subject for the Ignis is Fujiki Yusaku,” Ryoken’s expression turned into a distressing manner. “Is that what you want to know?” 

He didn’t know what to say anymore. His counterpart was involved in the Lost Incident just like him, yet the other chose to join the Knights of Hanoi, to help them eliminate the Ignis. Nothing made sense to him. Why did his counterpart decide to choose this path for himself?

“Why do you want to know that,” Ryoken asked back. “What’s the point of recalling all these? You obviously don’t like where this conversation is going.” 

“I thought he’s having a better life than me. That he’s not involved in the Lost Incident. That... he’s with you.” 

“Yusaku will not have a better life when I’m involved in it,” the last sentence made Ryoken snapped, but he immediately regretted his sudden action. He bit his lip in slight frustration and tried hard not to look at Yusaku who had flinched at the words. Ryoken took a deep breath and calmed himself down, then gave Yusaku a wistful look. 

“I’m sorry for that. Please don’t take it to heart,” Ryoken spoke in a soft tone to avoid startling Yusaku further. “And I don’t think you want to discuss more about your past. I understand you’re really curious about the other Yusaku, but we should only focus on our objective to bring you back, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do now? ” 

Yusaku was way too curious that he wanted to oppose that, but he understood he was not supposed to be persistent in this matter. It wouldn’t do any good for both parties, and he certainly didn’t want to ruin their newly formed temporary partnership with his excessive curiosity. 

“You’re right, we should focus on that.” 

Through that nearly emotionless expression, Ryoken could easily see a slight of sadness from Yusaku. He heaved out a gentle sigh and reached out his hand, but immediately halted his movement. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat. 

“...Maybe I can share with you something else in the future, if you’re really that curious,” Ryoken then sighed again with a smile. “Your curiosity is just as much as my Yusaku.” 

_What does that supposed to mean?_ Yusaku looked at Ryoken curiously. “It would be unfair if you’re the only one telling me. I will share mine as well with you in exchange, if you are curious to know about my side. I don’t mind telling you anything. Including all the things we need to know about Lightning’s motive, of course.” 

Ryoken nodded. “Right, and truth to be said, I would be lying if I say I'm not being curious of wanting to know about you, and the side of your world. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable with sharing anything you don’t like to.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Yusaku replied. “Maybe not everything. I don’t even know what would make me uncomfortable to say now.”

Silence fell upon them quickly, both of them didn't speak for a moment. Ryoken sat quietly, eyes focusing on Yusaku from time to time. Yusaku guessed Ryoken might be having some thoughts in his mind. 

Ryoken finally broke the silence, as he looked at Yusaku with a sudden serious face which surprised the younger teen.

“How about we talk about something else? Something that I’m still curious about.” 

“What is it?”

“About you not feeling comfortable with my presence. It somehow still bothers me.” 

Yusaku was dumbfounded by that. Why would Ryoken feel bothered with it? He had absolutely no clue about it. 

“Well, I know the _other me_ is your enemy, and I understand you can't help but see me as him, but your reaction is… how do I put it? It’s quite different from how you would react to someone you hate.” 

“Since when did I say I hate him?” Yusaku frowned, watching Ryoken stood up and took a few steps to stand beside him. “We are enemies, but that doesn’t mean I hate him.” 

“If that’s the case, how would you explain your discomfort whenever I’m close to you, like now?” 

Yusaku jumped slightly when Ryoken’s face was just an inch away from his, those striking blue eyes staring right into him, observing him closely. He failed to notice the other’s approached presence, and he could feel both their knees bumping lightly. He felt his own body had become stiff, and his mind had stopped thinking. 

“Well?” Ryoken kept staring at Yusaku, a small smile slowly crept up on his lips. 

“You are invading my personal space again,” Yusaku was having an inner struggle of whether to move away his eyes or stare back. He didn’t really feel uncomfortable, it was just because the person in front of him was, well, Ryoken. Even though it was not the same person, it still made Yusaku nervous. And he definitely was not going to tell Ryoken the true reason he had this weird feeling. 

“You can choose to push me away. Or you can even punch me in the face if you want,” Ryoken suggested. 

“Wh— why would I do that?” Yusaku was taken aback by that, and then replied with a puzzled tone. 

“About you choosing to push me away?”

“No, the other one. Why would I choose to punch your face?”

Ryoken gave him an innocent look and smirked. “Because I’m invading your personal space?” 

Yusaku was absolutely feeling weird now. Why did this Ryoken suddenly become this playful when they were just having a conversation that might have made their situations worse. Ryoken was sitting way too relaxed and acting way too natural, as if they had done this kind of exchange plenty of times. 

“You’re reacting like that at me again. You sure you’re not uncomfortable?” 

“I’m just… don’t really sure how to react. That’s all. Enemies don’t do this sort of thing to each other. And I don’t understand what you’re trying to do. Stop doing this to me so sudden. I’m not used to people getting this close around me.”

“I will apologize once again for that. That would be the last time I do that. I promise you, I will not touch you without your permission.” 

Ryoken slowly backed away from Yusaku and smiled sadly. "Be sure to stop me if I want to touch you. I might do that sometimes without aware."

That was a weird statement, Yusaku thought. Why would Ryoken even want to touch him?

“One more thing, you said you don’t know how to react. But your face told me something else.”

Yusaku touched his own cheek and panicked. “What?”

“Your face were red.”

Yusaku felt heat crept up his face, and he glared at Ryoken. “I’m just not expecting you doing all that.” 

“What I can see is that that’s definitely not how you would react to your enemy,” Ryoken thoughtly deeply and smiled to himself, as if he had figured something out. “Interesting.” 

“What?” 

Yusaku didn't hear the last part.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself,” Ryoken replied. “Feeling better now? You seemed feeling really down after all the talk. Looks like you didn’t even notice it yourself.”

 _Is he trying to cheer me up?_ Yusaku couldn’t help but think of that. Ryoken was quite right, as he really didn’t really notice himself became gloomy. But he did feel a little better now. He nodded slightly at Ryoken, and again, didn’t know how to respond properly to this situation.

Ryoken just smiled at him without asking for an answer. The nod was more than enough. 

“You still want your coffee?” Ryoken took his own mug and drank all his tea, and Yusaku mimicked his movement by drinking all his remaining coffee. Ryoken took the mug from him and picked up the apple core from the coffee table to dispose of it. 

“Anyway, you should take this as your temporary home. Make yourself comfortable here. And please don’t hesitate to ask for anything.” Ryoken came back from the kitchen and something came to his mind when he looked at Yusaku, who was still sitting on the couch and looking back at him.

“There’s a thing I have to tell you. If you wish to go outside somewhere, please inform me beforehand. I wouldn’t want you to suddenly disappear again. I don't really want that sort of thing happening anymore. Can you do that?” 

Yusaku nodded. “Got it. But I don’t think I have anywhere else to go anyway.” Well, to be honest, he was actually curious about wanting to visit the Cafe Nagi of this world, to see how Kusanagi-san was doing here. 

The smile Ryoken gave Yusaku was once again kind, the gentleness behind it made Yusaku pursed up his lips in a thin line. He wondered if the other Ryoken’s smile could be this beautiful and charming. 

“Thank you. Since we’re going to be working together, I think a self-introduction is necessary.” 

Yusaku was about to reply that it was not necessary, but Ryoken had sat down beside him, keeping a distance between them and held out his right hand. Yusaku stared blankly at the hand, and noticed the unique red triangle tattoo formed with six smaller red triangles marked on the tanned skin. It was similar to what he had caught a glimpse once on Ryoken’s hand back in his world, but he didn’t have the chance to look at it closely like this. 

“Something caught your interest? Or you don’t want a handshake with me?” Ryoken blinked, Yusaku quickly said ‘no’ and held out his hand, shaking it with Ryoken’s. He unconsciously lifted his head to gaze at Ryoken vibrant blue eyes. He had imagined himself drowning again into the blueness. Those pair of eyes were as pretty as he remembered. And he shouldn’t think of that now.

“Kogami Ryoken,” he started with a simple name introduction. Yusaku replied back in the same way.

“Fujiki Yusaku,” just after he finished saying his name, a soft growling noise emitted somewhere out of the sudden and both of them froze with their hands still holding. When Ryoken found out the source of the sound that interrupted them, he used his other hand to cover his mouth, eyes closed and body shaking lightly. Yusaku knew right away that the other was holding back his laughter, and he instantly felt embarrassed. His stomach just chose this moment to be hungry and growling for attention. What a way to ruin their first introduction. 

Aside from being embarrassed, it was actually refreshing to see his adversary (he had to emphasize to himself again that this was not the same person) laughing, despite him covering half of his face from view. But the gesture itself was endearing enough for Yusaku to stare at the white-haired teen with bizarre emotions forming within him. Would the Ryoken he knew also react the same if they were in this similar case?

Ryoken finally stopped shaking and moved away his hand from his face.

“Sorry, it was rude of me to do that. Yusaku hadn’t been eating anything for today, so you must be really hungry now. Guess we have to stop here for the time being. It’s almost dinnertime, I will go prepare for our meals. We can talk about our plan after this.”

Yusaku didn’t want to feel useless staying in this house, so he stood up from the couch, wanting to follow Ryoken to the kitchen. 

“Can I help you with the cooking?” Then, he regretted saying that without further thinking after a second. 

He didn’t really know how to cook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! It's been awhile since the last update. Things had gotten busy for the past few weeks and I finally have some time to write and update. Hope you will enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Note: This chapter is written in Ryoken's POV. Side B for the first part and Side A for the second part.

Three times Ryoken had told himself not to act too hastily. The first time was working fine when he found out about the portal Lightning created in Link Vrains, and that Playmaker had gone into it by force before the Knights of Hanoi could take any actions of further investigation. The sudden disappearance of the hero of Link Vrains did make him worried more or less, even if he wanted to immediately search for his adversary, he knew he shouldn’t be moving rashly without backup plans. 

The second time was fine as well when he received a message from an anonymous. It was from the Dark Ignis, and the message had helped to deduce that Yusaku was safe with him, that they might even have logged out from the virtual world and escaped.

Yet, he didn’t expect to meet Yusaku from a ‘different world’. Ryoken was definitely not prepared for the sudden meeting, and that this Yusaku had requested to meet him for help. Everything that happened to Yusaku was out of his calculation, he didn’t know the Light Ignis would have the capability to do whatever he had done for his master plan, and the fear he felt towards Ignis’s further growth increased. He had to make sure Yusaku would come back safely, so he chose to offer his help. 

As for the third time, he somehow failed part of it. He did not act without thinking, but he still ended up calling on Yusaku, and met up with him at late hours. 

Yusaku didn’t seem to mind at all, and he let Ryoken in without hesitation, or asking for explanations or reasons for him to show up at these hours. He took his guest to his room and politely told Roboppi to take her rest, watching the little robot waved at him and Ai, even at Ryoken with a ‘goodnight’ and left them alone. 

“Had you come here before?” Yusaku asked while softly gesturing to Ai that they had a guest, and the Ignis was actually more interested in Ryoken’s reply for the question, since he stared at the leader of Knights of Hanoi, waiting for him to say something. 

“I don’t have any reason to come here,” he ignored Dark Ignis’s glare towards him. He knew the reason for the Ignis to react such. He had visited Yusaku’s place once, and it was not a really pleasant experience at all, because they ended their conversation with a heated argument, though they had settled it not long after. He didn’t want to talk about or recall it. 

Yusaku accepted Ryoken’s reply without asking further, and let him sit on a chair facing the bed. Once they had settled themselves, with Yusaku sitting on the bed and Ai popping his head out from the Duel Disk that put on the desk nearby, Yusaku adjusted his sitting posture to be very attentive and looked at Ryoken. Without further ado, Yusaku told Ryoken everything about the inside of the portal, about the mirror maze and the mirror room with more details this time. Ai joined in the conversation once in awhile, and Ryoken found out that the situations and settings of both sides were similar, the only difference was that Yusaku in front of him knew the exact way to walk through the maze, and that he helped the other Yusaku by giving guidance and directions. Ai immediately commented at that.

“So you’re the one who guided us in solving the maze? You saved us from all the troubles! We really owe you one for this. You have no idea how long we had been trapped inside that creepy place. No wonder Yusaku could tell where to go, like he had gone through it before.” 

“I had analysed all the paths and memorised the only way to reach the exit, took me a few days to do the memorising by the way.”

“That’s really incredible!” Ai exclaimed with widened eyes, then felt confused by Yusaku's words. “But wait, days? I thought the portal just appeared today.” 

“It's different for us. The portal that linked to this world had long appeared in my world,” Yusaku showed three fingers to Ryoken, and Ai watched curiously at the digits. “Three weeks. The portal was already there three weeks ago. We had been trying to get as much information about it, but there was not much progress. After weeks of continuous calculations and analysing, we didn’t get to find out the exact purpose of the program.”

“What did you find out from your analysis?” Ryoken asked, and Yusaku replied back calmly. 

“The space inside the portal is not created to do anything. It’s not a capture program, and I did not detect any sort of virus program in it. Like they are just there, an abandoned house with no purpose.”

Ryoken still suspected it to be something menacing that could incite the war between the human and the Ignis. He did not trust the Ignis at all, especially the Light Ignis. Everything the Ignis did or created was not purposeless. 

“If you think it does not serve any purpose, how do you explain your current situation?” Yusaku pursed up his lips into a thin line, then slowly released a defeated sigh. 

“That was something I didn’t expect. I know the portal is definitely a trap made by Lightning, just that we don’t know how it works. Before finding the other me from the other side of the mirror, I just thought the space is created to prevent us of proceeding our next move, at least that’s what Ryoken thought.” 

Ryoken reacted slightly to that name, and to his horror, Yusaku noticed that. The teen shifted slightly and said with a relaxed tone. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not talking about you.” 

“I know,” he replied shortly. He knew Yusaku was not talking about him, but he still couldn’t help but react when the other said out that name with that very same voice. 

“You know what’s inside the portal, and you know very well that it's a trap. Yet, you still choose to put yourself in it,” Ryoken folded his arms and said. “Why?” 

Yusaku hesitated at the question, turning his eyes upon Ai for a few seconds, then pulled back his attention to Ryoken. Ryoken observed the Dark Ignis in the Duel Disk, and the Ignis just shrugged back at him, giving a sign that he didn't know the answer.

“I’m just doing what I need to do,” Yusaku lifted up both his legs and clasped round his knees with his arms. Half of his face hid behind the lifted legs settling comfortably on the bed, showing only his emerald green eyes to the world. The pair of eyes blinked slowly with imperceptible nervousness, at least unnoticeable to Ai but not to Ryoken, which the latter noted. “Besides, I’m not doing this for anyone.”

Ryoken didn’t know what that exactly meant from him, but he was sure Yusaku must have risked himself to achieve something. That something had him willingly to throw himself into danger. 

“Did you go in all by yourself?” After seeing Yusaku’s nod, Ryoken frowned. “You do know that’s a dangerous act to do, right?” 

Yusaku sighed. “Better than doing nothing at all. And I didn’t even have time to think.” 

“You made this decision without _his_ consent, am I correct?”

Yusaku sighed. “Definitely going to get a long lecture after this. But I don’t really care at the moment. Just that I feel really bad for making him worried. I hope he’s doing fine there. ”

“You seem to be really close to him,” Ryoken wondered, noticing the change of tone from Yusaku, like he cared more about the other ‘Ryoken’ getting angry or worried than his own situation. 

”Oh? You jealous?” Ai looked at Ryoken with a grin, and Yusaku lifted up his head to look at the Ignis curiously. Ryoken gave the Ignis a reproachful look. 

“Even for an AI with free will, you really like to talk nonsense.” 

Yusaku stopped Ai from retorting back and looked at Ryoken. “Sort of. We have been living together and taking care of each other for ten years now. It’s hard for me not to get worried about him.” 

That really stirred up some emotions within him. Ten years, that meant this Yusaku had been staying together with the other him ever since he was six. A different fate from the Yusaku he knew of. How did he meet the other him? And why did the other him decide to let Yusaku stay with him? Too many questions arose at once just from that small information. 

A wave of a hand in front of Ryoken’s face snapped him out of his thoughts. He quickly brushed off all the thoughts and motioned Yusaku to proceed with their discussion. 

“After knowing the identity of the other me, I figured out that things are not as simple as I thought anymore,” Yusaku huffed with slight annoyance, putting him legs down on the floor. “And I don’t want to put him in any danger back in my world. He shouldn’t be facing any of that.”

“Neither should you,” Ryoken replied. “You are not supposed to face any risk here. Both of you should be back to where you are from.”

“You’re right. So, uh…”

Yusaku paused and stared at Ryoken with an awkward smile. Ryoken blinked his eyes, then realized Yusaku was trying to call his name.

“Since you don’t really want me to call you by your real name, what should I call you?” 

An unexpected change of subject, but Ryoken didn’t mind at all. 

“You can just call me Revolver, like how the other you address me.”

“But I don’t want to,” Yusaku replied almost stubbornly. “Three reasons. One, it just feels weird to call you by your avatar name when we’re not in Link Vrains. Second, what if someone heard our conversation in public when I called out your avatar name? SOL is searching for you, there might be possibilities of their people overhearing us. And three.” 

Yusaku’s words came to a halt, and Ryoken could see the soft blush appear on the periwinkle haired duelist’s face. 

“A habit of mine might make me say something stupid. So I don’t want to call you that in reality.”

Whatever that habit might be, Ryoken decided to leave this matter and his curiosity aside. It was none of his business. 

“Just try to make up a name then, you can think up a name that I will respond back to you.” They had bigger things to worry about, and Ryoken didn’t want to waste anymore time on these small matters. 

Yusaku straight away went into a deep thought. After a brief moment, he looked at Ryoken with a slight sense of accomplishment, like a child who had scored full marks for his test. 

“In that case, can I call you Rev? It’s a shortened name for Revolver.” 

Ryoken nodded. “That would be fine. Shall we move on?”

“Of course,” Yusaku replied. ”Here’s what I would like to do next. I want to search and check for the portal. Light Ignis must be aware of us intruding into it by now. I’m afraid he might have taken the chance to rewrite the code of the program.” 

“There might be the possibility of Light Ignis wanting to keep the portal out of our sight, or the data might be concealed.” Ryoken said. 

Yusaku nodded. 

“You have a point. But I’m worried there is something else. Light Ignis’s actions are unforeseeable.”

“What is it?” 

“I can’t make a confirmation at the moment. It’s weak… I can’t sense anything from here.” 

The last sentence came out as a whisper, but Ryoken heard it clearly. Ai then said out of panic.

“What if Lightning chooses to erase the data?! Then we’ll not be able to access the portal anymore!”

Yusaku replied weakly. “Light Ignis might or might not do that, but we better go and check it sooner. Removing the portal will be the worst possible outcome. If that really happens, we’ll have to think of a new plan.”

As the conversation went on, Ryoken had a question formed in his head which was out of their topic, but he decided to ask it. 

“I just noticed you are not addressing Light Ignis’s name, is there a reason for that?”

“Name?” Yusaku tilted his head. “Oh. That’s because the Ignis don’t really have names back in my place. I’m shocked Ai has a name.” 

Ai mimicked the head tilting and looked at Yusaku. “Is that so? Man, that sounds boring. They should have thought of a cool name like mine for themselves!” 

Yusaku smiled at Ai’s perky pose, then continued with his answer. “We just call them by their attribute. There’s an exception though. From what I had known, Homu— Takeru from my world addresses Fire Ignis with different names, since Fire Ignis doesn’t have a fixed name for himself. I think Takeru calls him based on his mood. He usually calls him Fire Ignis, sometimes Fire for short. Flame when he’s in a good mood, Fiery when he’s in a panic, and Blaze when he’s in a duel. Inferno when he wants to apologize to Fire Ignis because the name impresses him.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of names. How about when Takeru’s angry at him? Like when they’re arguing.”

“Stupid Fireball,” with that, Ai laughed uncontrollably and it made Ryoken frown. Why did he want to come here in the first place again?

“That’s... really interesting to hear,” Ryoken replied after waiting for Dark Ignis to stop his laughter. The Ignis was still holding his stomach from all the laughing. 

Yusaku cleared his throat. “Off topic. Anyway, Rev, I would like to do something about finding the exact location of the portal. It might not be at the same point as in Link Vrains back in my world, but I need to do some coordinations. Need to look over something too.” 

“I can contact Spectre to send me the necessary data from the tracking program—”

“Wait, that's not what I mean. Don’t bother about the data, I can eventually get the information myself in Link Vrains when I have the time. What I want to do is, I want to get close to the location personally. I will explain about it later.” 

Yusaku stood up from the bed, and Ryoken watched him pick up his Duel Disk from the desk, with Ai peeping out from the orb and staring at Yusaku incredulously. Ryoken was about to say something, but the Dark Ignis had beaten him to it. 

“Hold on there! Yusaku! Are you trying to go back into Link Vrains?! How about we leave it for tomorrow or other days? You should rest for today! I don’t want you to work too hard! You might get sick!” 

So the Dark Ignis had shown care and concern for this supposedly ‘stranger’ even though they just met each other for only a short amount of time, and that was what—at that very moment—convinced Ryoken that this ‘Yusaku’ was not some imposter sent by Lightning, or from SOL which he believed they would take advantage of this situation if they had discovered about it. He would not discuss this with the Ignis and their origins, but he knew that there was a strong invisible bond between the human and the AIs with free will, connecting and linking them together. He guessed the Dark Ignis would not give his trust to other humans as much as to his own origin, but he didn’t know whether this ‘bond’ would also apply to his origin from another dimension. 

This also gave him a conjecture that this Yusaku was also involved in the ‘Lost Incident’, since the existence of Ignis was present in the other’s world, even if Yusaku didn’t tell him anything about that incident. Why did he decide to join the Knights of Hanoi, that information was beyond his knowledge. 

“Thank you for your concern, Ai. But don’t worry about me, I’m not really tired now. I just want to check out the Link Vrains in this world. At the same time, maybe I can do some searching there.”

“But you’d just come back from there! You really shouldn’t push yourself, remember what you had promised us back then?” 

Ryoken silently watched their exchange. It was reasonable for Dark Ignis to react like that. Yusaku’s face looked more tired than usual, maybe even more exhausted than during their first meeting at Stardust Road. 

“Maybe you should listen to Dark Ignis,” Ryoken said in his usual tone. Ai immediately turned his head at the leader of the Knights of Hanoi, and he immediately retorted. “I just don’t want Playmaker to collapse and delay our plan.”

Ai glared at the cold reply, while Yusaku was staring at both of them with an expression that Ryoken couldn’t read. This Yusaku was as mysterious as the other one. 

“While I want to say it’s so rare for us to be on the same page, now’s not really the time for that. Yusaku-chan! Even Revolver wants you to rest, so let’s just call it a day. You should really go to sleep soon!” 

Yusaku attached the old modeled Duel Disk on his left wrist, then lifted up the wrist and looked at Ai. He gave Ai an apologetic smile. 

“It won’t take long. I just want to briefly look at the place. Give me thirty minutes. After that, I will log out and go to sleep.”

Ai didn’t seem to change his mind as he turned his head away from Yusaku, and Ryoken was actually way too astounded by Yusaku’s action to interrupt them. 

_'Is Yusaku trying to ask for permission from Dark Ignis to log into Link Vrains?'_ Ryoken was sure if this was the Yusaku he knew of, he would immediately take action on what he wanted to do without listening to the Ignis’s protest. 

”Pretty please?” Yusaku then said something that made Ai react almost too comedic, his tiny head turned so fast to face the periwinkle haired teen and Ryoken tried to suppress his strange expression forming on his face. Never in his mind would have thought Yusaku to speak out with this type of requesting tone. It did really sound weird, but this was not the Yusaku he knew after all. 

Ai’s stare softened, then sighed heavily and went back into the Duel Disk. An eyeball appeared on the orb. 

“Fine. But if you suddenly feel sick, I will log us out by force.” 

Yusaku murmured a soft ‘Thank you’ and lifted his head to look at Ryoken.

“Rev, you coming?” Yusaku asked with a tiny hint of hope in his tone, like he wanted Ryoken to go together with him. “I know it’s getting late now, but you can leave if you—” 

Ryoken immediately replied without waiting for the other to finish his sentence. 

“I’m coming with you. Need to keep an eye on you after all.” 

“Cold as usual,” Ai rolled his eye. “Shall we move now?” 

“Of course.”

* * *

The silver fork in Yusaku’s hand poking the salad stopped the moment one of them broke the silence at the dining table. Before lifting his head up from the salad, Ryoken could see Yusaku was busy staring at his salad like he wanted to murder the poor dish, maybe because of the sudden silent that made him feel uncomfortable, after they sat down together to eat their late meal. 

“Does the food not suit your taste?” He tried to ask the younger teen, scared that he didn’t like the food, but the other just shook his head, denying his thought. 

“No, it’s really good,” Yusaku looked at the omurice on a plate beside his salad bowl, a small part of the omelette and fried rice was eaten. “I'm just trying to absorb what you had said back then.” 

Since Ryoken stated that he preferred to have someone talk to him while he did the cooking, Yusaku took the chance to tell him everything he knew about the portal in detail. At the same time, he was trying his best to assist Ryoken with preparing the ingredients and chopping the vegetables, while the other listened attentively to his explanation, only giving some short comments here and then. 

Ryoken nodded with understanding. “The portal was already in Link Vrains for three weeks, and you told me you only discovered it just today. But the time difference does not seem to affect anything.” 

“Any idea why Lightning created it?”

Ryoken shook his head lightly, the fork in his hand lightly poking the omelette, breaking a small hole on it. 

“To think that Light Ignis has the power to create a program to connect with a different world, it’s really worrying. His actions are not what we had predicted.”

”Same for us,” Yusaku replied, and took a small bite from his omurice. The tiny smile formed on the lips after the bite made Ryoken feel delighted, that Yusaku was enjoying his food. “And I won’t let him do what he wants.” 

“There’s another thing that drew Yusaku’s attention, aside from the portal. And it somehow helped him to clear up some questions in his head.” 

“What is it?” 

Ryoken told him not to stop eating, so Yusaku took a sip of soup, and his face immediately twisted. He coughed lightly and forced himself to swallow down the soup. Ryoken politely handed Yusaku a glass of water. He knew the soup was strangely sweet and it tasted weird. Yusaku said it was not good to waste food so they did not throw away the dish.

“Yusaku sensed something strange ever since the portal appeared. This has been going on for three weeks. Whenever he was in Link Vrains, he always felt a presence. Sometimes strong, sometimes weak. He couldn’t tell what it was. He told me the presence was close, yet far at the same time, like he couldn’t touch it physically even if the presence was in front of him. Then, about a few days ago.”

Ryoken quietly chewed down a small piece of lettuce before continuing to explain. 

“Yusaku gave me an assumption, that the presence somehow has the same sense as his. The same ability.” 

“Ability? You don’t mean... Link Sense?” 

Ryoken nodded. “Nobody has the same ability like him, other than…. And that attracted Yusaku’s curiosity.”

Yusaku didn’t show any sign of noticing the sudden change of word from Ryoken, and the latter was relieved with it. 

“Once he’s very into finding out the truth of something, nobody could change his mind and his unyielding decision. Yusaku could sense your Link Sense linking with his, but he couldn’t get an exact answer of your identity. So at first he couldn’t help but think of you as an enemy sent by Light Ignis.”

“He did ask me that back in the mirror room, but I didn’t get to answer him. My voice can’t reach him, but his voice is clear in my head.” 

Yusaku drank more water and left his salad after a few bites. When he saw Ryoken took a sip from the soup, he said with an apologetic tone.

”I’m sorry about the soup.” 

Ryoken could tell that Yusaku felt bad because he accidentally mixed up salt with sugar, so the soup turned out to be sweet instead of salty. But he was really pleased to have Yusaku there to help him, having the younger teen talking beside him did make him feel relieved from all the suppressed impatience that had been buried within him ever since Yusaku left without him. He was glad the emotion did not show up, as he knew he should not be losing his head in this case. 

After realizing the soup tasted weird during the tasting, Yusaku insisted on drinking the liquid dish all by himself, but Ryoken didn’t mind the sweetness and wished the younger teen would let him have some. 

“It’s fine. I don’t hate the taste. Rather, it is quite nostalgic,” that was the only thing Ryoken said to Yusaku. The taste reminded him of the time when his Yusaku mixed up the wrong ingredients, resulting in them eating a meal with a bizarre smell and taste. Yusaku was quite surprised that Ryoken could drink the soup without complaining or showing any sort of discomfort on his face. 

“So the presence Yusaku felt all this time is really you after all. Other than thinking of you as an enemy from Lightning, he told me your presence felt really familiar, like someone he had known for long.” 

“Maybe that’s why he chose to help me... His Link Sense must be really strong, to be able to capture my presence from that distance.” 

“He’s overworking himself to track you down. He had been staying in Link Vrains longer than usual, and couldn't stop talking about your presence for the past three weeks,” Ryoken continued. “Spectre was quite upset that Yusaku skipped some of his meals, because his mind was too occupied with it.”

“Where’s Spectre? You mentioned he’s living here too.”

“He’ll not be here for the next few days, so it’s just the two of us,” Ryoken simply replied. Spectre did have a reason unable to come back, but he would tell Yusaku when the time came. Someone was taking care of him so he could focus on helping Yusaku to go back to his world. “So for now, I have no reason to doubt you anymore, your explanation dovetailed with what Yusaku had described about the presence.”

“What did he say about it?” Yusaku took a sip of the soup and coughed again. Ryoken handed him another glass of water. 

“You had been running everywhere in Link Vrains, like you were chasing something, or being chased by someone else. Unless you're standing still, he'll have time to identify you. But he didn’t find the chance at all. That’s another reason he didn’t figure out about you sooner. Either you’re moving too fast, or you’re too far away. Seems like you’re really busy dealing with what you’re facing back at your world. Is it about the Ignis?”

Yusaku nodded. “I guess it's the same case here. What do you think we should do first for our plan?” 

“I’m thinking of checking on the portal before we create a plan. I’m afraid Light Ignis might get alarmed of what happened within it. I don't think he will keep silent and sit it out without doing anything.” 

“I feel the same way,” Yusaku whispered. “He might have done something to the portal before we know it.” 

Yusaku finished his omurice and wiped his mouth with a napkin, just like how Ryoken did. After Ryoken finished his meal, Yusaku helped him to clean up the dining table and went on with helping him to do the dishes. Even if Ryoken had told him to leave all the dishes to him, the younger teen refused and stood beside him, not leaving the kitchen. Ryoken sighed with a smile and gave up on persuading Yusaku to take his needed rest. 

He peeped at Yusaku’s serious face, and he knew the other must have something to tell him, and he had a feeling the next thing he would say might be not something he would agree with.

”No,” so he made the first move. 

Yusaku turned his head from the dishes and looked at Ryoken with a confused face, his hand did not forget to hand a washed clean plate to him. 

“I didn’t say anything yet,” Yusaku said, turning his head back to the sink. 

“I know what you want to say,” Ryoken wiped the plate dry and put it at the dish rack. “But you have been going through alot today. I don’t think going back into Link Vrains is a good idea.”

“We can get more clues faster inside Link Vrains. You should know we don’t have time to waste.” 

Ryoken looked at the digital wall clock attached on the wall in the kitchen. It was nearly midnight. 

“Are you sure you really want to go? You still look tired. And it’s late now.” 

“I’m positive. We can avoid crowds since there are lesser players in Link Vrains at this time, besides,” after they finished doing the dishes, Yusaku looked back at Ryoken with those determined eyes, the latter could catch a glimpse of that pair of green eyes becoming dim for a second. 

“I don’t feel like going to sleep,” Yusaku admitted, and Ryoken didn’t need him to elaborate more. He knew exactly what the other meant by that. 

He suddenly felt helpless. Yusaku was staring at him with that blank emotionless face, the same expression his Yusaku showed most of the time. Despite spending years with each other, Ryoken had no idea what Yusaku was thinking sometimes. But at the very least, he could see the emotion hiding behind those eyes. The fear and loneliness shown was something familiar to Ryoken, and at the exact moment, he wished he could pluck up the courage to comfort and hug him, like how he used to do for his Yusaku. 

“You really don’t know what danger is, do you?” Ryoken furrowed his brows, the stubbornness in this Yusaku is really similar to what he was familiar with. “I’m thinking of accessing through the network. We don't necessarily need to go there personally.” 

“If you’re worrying about me collapsing again, don’t be. I’m feeling fine.” 

_Liar_. This Yusaku was really as stubborn as the other one. He wished Spectre was here to help him.

Then, Ryoken knew it was no use of arguing with Yusaku further. He was not going to listen to him anyway. The worst thing that might happen was Yusaku going back into Link Vrains without him again. He was not going to repeat that.

The leader of Knights of Hanoi sighed with defeat and left without saying further, leaving Yusaku alone in the kitchen. When he was back from the room where Yusaku had rested before, he found him sitting on the couch in the living room. He could see clearly of the slightly surprised reaction from Yusaku when he handed him his Duel Disk, his Yusaku’s Duel Disk to be specific. 

“I thought you’re upset with me,” Yusaku took the Duel Disk, eyeing the device for a few seconds, then lifted up his head to meet Ryoken’s eyes, seeking an answer from him. 

“If you really think I’m upset, how about you give up on your decision?” Ryoken folded his arms and tried to sound stern, however the other did not seem to be affected by the change of tone. 

“Then why did you give me this?” Yusaku attached the Duel Disk on his left wrist. “I don’t suppose you’re telling me to wear this to bed.” 

Ryoken chuckled lightly. “You can do that if you want to. I’m sure it will not be comfortable. And what do you think I’m trying to tell you?”

He then lifted up his left arm and showed his Duel Disk to Yusaku, pointing at the device. 

“I’m not going to let you go by yourself, things are more dangerous than you think there. And you need a guide. You might get lost if you’re alone.” 

“Not necessary,” Yusaku stood up and replied. “I‘m sure the Link Vrains here is the same.”

“We’ll see,” Ryoken smiled, then stared back at him solemnly. “But if you’re showing even a small sign of getting tired, I will immediately log us out. No objection.” 

Ryoken then beckoned to Yusaku, and the latter followed him to the room where they previously first met. Ryoken let Yusaku sit back on the familiar armchair which he woke up from. 

“I will see you in Link Vrains,” Ryoken walked slowly to another armchair situated behind Yusaku. “Please be beware of the bounty hunters from SOL, and if you come across a _monstrous creature_ , stay away from it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and thank you for the patience waiting for this chapter! Hope you will have a nice day!


End file.
